The Rain of Sins
by Z75
Summary: What exactly is a Quirk? Such a simple question should have an equally simple answer, unfortunately for Izuku, he forgot the very basic lesson of "Look before you Leap" and was woefully unprepared for how deep the rabbit hole went. Now with the butterfly effect in full swing, everyone will learn just how much one question can change everything "I'm not a Villain! I'm a geneticist!"
1. Prologue

The Rain of Sins

_The butterfly effect. "The sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state". It's such an odd phenomenon when you think about it, one small event that changes everything after it in such an extreme measure, the most well known example being "A butterfly flaps its wings and causes a storm across the ocean"_

_A mistake in a lab lead to penicillin and saved millions of lives. A slight change in temperature can change an entire hurricane's path, causing untold property damage and loss of life. A pebble kicked off a cliff can start an avalanche, destroying everything in its path._

_But that's what's so fascinating isn't it? One mistake can save a nation. One miscalculation can ruin everything. _

_All it takes is one push and gravity does the rest… _

_For better or worse._

-Rain of Sins-

-Arc Start: Prologue-

The world is a harsh and unforgiving place, the people who inhabit it can be even harsher. To hold dreams in such a world is dangerous, to hold them out in the open infinitely moreso.

This is a lesson a certain Izuku Midoria has learned many times from many different types of people.

His doctor.

"Kid, you have a second pinky toe joint. It's very unlikely you're ever going to get a quirk"

His Bullies

"Ha! The quirkless kid wants to be a hero, what a joke!"

His Childhood friend.

"Listen Nerd, I'm the only one from this school who's hero material, YOU GOT THAT!?"

His mother.

"I'm so sorry sweetie"

His Idol

"No. A quirkless person can't be a hero"

That last one hurt the most… or at least it would when it sunk in, right now he just felt numb. Today had been a long day for him, first he got pointed out and laughed at by the class, then his notebook got burned, then he got attacked by a Villain, then got saved by All Might, then he found out All Might's secret, and then ,last but not least, he had his dreams torn apart in front of his very eyes.

All of these had piled on top of one another until Izuku's brain just shut down and lead to his current situation. Absentmindedly drifting along the streets, relying on his feet and muscle memory to take him to his destination… which was still undecided. He couldn't let his mother see him like this, so home was a no-go, but he didn't want to think of somewhere else to go… he didn't want to do much thinking at all right now.

The atmosphere wasn't doing his mood any favors either, a cloudy afternoon sky overhanging a dreary street, empty save for the occasional piece of forgotten trash. The only noise to be found was an old crow on a telephone wire, and his own thoughts.

Maybe he should have listened to Kachan and just given up already, it would have saved him a lot of trouble, hell if he had listened he wouldn't have run into All Might in the first place… who would have ever thought that would be considered a _good_ thing.

The Green haired student was shaken out of his thoughts by the sound of familiar explosions. Those were Kachan's explosions, he had been hit with them to many times to not know what they sounded like.

Thankfully Izuku has had plenty of experience with what to do in these situations. He turned around, and started walking in the opposite direction (He was quirkless not suicidal), however he only made it a few steps before something stopped him.

"Are those… screams?"

Turning to look did nothing to assuage the pit forming in his gut either, wisps of black smoke were creeping above the building skyline like dark skeletal fingers. Instinct carried his feet forward before freezing in place.

"_A quirkless person can't be a hero"_

The words bounced around his head with the weight of a freight train.

'_Later' _He told himself as he forced his legs to move '_I'll deal with that later'_

-Rain of Sins-

It took awhile for him to get where the explosions were coming from, and the closer he got, the louder the screams and explosions became. It was only when he rounded the last corner did he realize how bad the situation really was.

A crowd was surrounding the scene, only held back by a few police and a handful of pro heros, intense flames burned and lapped at the surrounding buildings, and at the center of it all...

"Kachan!"

The blond in question was in the center of the alleyway, blasting explosions in every direction and at every available opportunity, but that wasn't really anything abnormal, what _was_ out of the ordinary was the giant sludge Villain wrapped around said mini-pyromaniac. The same Villain, Izuku noted with dread, that had attacked him not an hour prior.

'_He escaped! But how?!' _His mind was running overtime trying to think up a solution_ 'All Might had him contained in the bottles! He even showed me, he showed me and then put them in his pock-' _His eyes widened in understanding and his stomach tied itself into knots _'It's my fault… I grabbed onto his pockets when he jumped, they must have torn open or at least been jostled enough so the bottles fell out!' _He looked to the people screaming, the fires still billowing smog into the sky, and his friend fighting for his life _'This is all my fault, all of this is because of me it's my fault and I can'tevendoanythingtohelpanyo-'_

He clamped down on his thoughts, closed his eyes, and forced himself to take a deep breath. _'Later'_ he told himself '_I'll think about it later; right now I need to focus on the situation at hand' _He waited a few seconds to calm himself down before opening his eyes and observing the situation again.

'_I-It's just like every other villain attack you've watched, b-but you need to get closer if you want to see anything useful' _he told himself as he nudged his way through the crowd

He nearly had a heart attack when he saw All Might's deflated form out of the corner of his eye, before passing it off as his already worn out mind playing tracks on him.

Pushing the last few people out of the way, he finally got to the front of the crowd. _'Three heroes present with Mt Lady on the way' _He observed_ 'It's okay Izuku this is just a standard hostage situation, the pros have trained for this a thousand times before, just calm down. Calm down, relax, and watch how they take care of it!' _Except, as he watched with bated breath… they didn't.

"Fire is my weakness, I can't get to close!" Kamui Woods yelled.

'_You have a water hero with you! Have you never had a campfire? Wet wood doesn't burn, have him blast you, then speed forward a branch arm, grab Kachan, and pull him away! Even if you can't get him entirely unstuck, he's aiming the Villain, you'll be in the _opposite_ direction he's aiming!'_

"The explosions are to intense, I can't reach them!" Death Arms chimed in.

_'Pick up one of the many large pieces of rubble surrounding you, use it as a shield to get close, and grab him! If he knows you're there to help he won't shoot you, how dumb do you think he is!'_

"The Villain's liquid, my punches wouldn't have any effect" He continued.

'_Excuse me? Can you not see correctly? He has _eyes_, and those are quite obviously _not _liquid! Or better yet, don't go for the Villain, go help Kachan, the Hostage who's in danger!"_

"I can't get through, the streets are too narrow!" Mt Lady proclaimed from the street over.

'_Then shrink down, get over here, and resize! Even if you can't grow, you can still help with the crowd!'_

"We could really use some high powered water right now!" Death Arms yelled.

"I can't, I already have my hands full with these fires!" The water hero responded.

'_Those buildings have already been evacuated, and actual firefighters are almost here. You're not even doing anything, because Kachan is the one causing the fires! Everytime you put one out, another starts. Save _him_ instead of the empty building, stop more fires from being started, _then_ with the help of the fire force put the rest of the fires out'_

"We don't have the right Quirks!"

'_At least you HAVE Quirks!'_

As the aspiring hero watched the scene unfold, he sunk to his knees.

'_He's going to die. He's going to die because no one did anything. He's going to die, and It's all my fault! Please' _he begged _'Someone, anyone please help. All Might help!"_

But as the seconds ticked by, Izuku learned something very important. Something that, looking back, he should have realized in the doctor's office all those years ago.

The world doesn't give a fuck about him. It doesn't care if he becomes a hero or jumps off a bridge, It'll just keep spinning as it's always done and will continue to do.

Blinking away unshed tears, Izuku forced himself to look back at his friend, fighting for his life because of _his_ mistake.

Izuku pushed himself to his feet, caught himself from falling, and moved.

-Rain of Sins-

Izuku numbly trudged his way through the alleyway that lead to his apartment. It wasn't the stereotypical dark alleyways from movies with drug dealers and gangs, no these were just normal, well lit(ish), urban alleyways and the most dangerous people that prowled them were the occasional elementary school bully.

Speaking of bullies, Izuku knew this area like the back of his hand _because_ he had been using it to dodge bullies that tried to chase him after school ended. Oddly enough, these allies were one of the few places Izuku could honestly say he felt completely safe (the other being his home). Which in an of itself was ironic, considering he had been completely terrified of them when he first got chased into them by bullies back in kindergarten.

Half an hour of crying and a friendly stray cat later he mustered up the courage to find his way out. "All Might wouldn't be scared" was the phrase that he repeated to himself over and over as he wandered in the vague direction of his home. And when it was all said in done, he found a direct route from school to his apartment complex that shaved off a good fifteen minutes off walking.

"All Might wouldn't be scared huh?"

All Might was the _reason _he was walking this route. It turns out he _hadn't _hallucinated All Might in the crowd, he had swooped in to save Izuku from the sludge villain after he had rushed in like an idiot. Then immediately after that, he had to sit and be scolded by four different pro heroes for what was best summed up as "Being an idiot and, even worse, being a quirkless idiot". All Might had even tried to walk over before he got swarmed by reporters, looking like he really wanted to say something.

Izuku already knew what he was going to say though, so he ran away. He ran into the alleys he used to hide, but this time it wasn't from his bullies, it was from the person he looked up to the most. He ran and hid because after everything he had been through that day, he couldn't be sure he could hold himself together.

"_**You didn't listen to my advice and put yourself in needless danger**__"_

But All Might was too kind to get angry over something like that. No, he wouldn't be angry at him and that's what made it so much worse.

"_**I'm not mad at you, I'm Disappointed in myself for my failure to convince you to stay safe**__"_

Wiping away tears that threatened to spill, the green haired boy, sore, beaten, and exhausted, continued to push himself forward.

'_Later'_ he told himself _'I'll deal with it all, when I get home'_

So instead he tried to distract himself with positive thoughts. He had aced that biology pop quiz in 2nd period. He got All Might's _autograph_, and could show it to his Mom! And Kachan…

Izuku couldn't help the grin that slowly spread across his face. He had done it, he had saved his friend! Even if nothing had gone to plan, he managed to be a real hero an-

"DEKU!"

Speak of the devil and he shall appear, turning around Izuku came face to face with the exact person he had been thinking about just a second prior. Leaning on the ally wall, panting, out of breath, and looking overall worse for wear (He _did_ just almost get eaten by a giant slime after all) stood the one and only Katsuki Bakugo.

"Kachan!" Midoriya smiled as he jogged to his friend, exhaustion forgotten. "Can you believe it? I finally was able to be a Hero! I was actua-"

The loud _crack_ of an explosion rocked the alleyway, jostling Izuku out of his 'cheerful thoughts. The explosion wasn't aimed at anything, being set involuntarily by an overflow of emotion, a quick glance to Bokugo's hands, clenched so tightly they were turning white with small pops going off around them every few seconds, proved this theory. His expression as he looked up proved it a second time. Blazing red eyes accompanied by a sneer that practically oozed malice did very little to lift Izuku's fast plummeting spirit.

"You little _shit_"

Most words were spoken. These were spat, and dripping with anger too. How fun.

Bakugo pushed himself off the wall and stood to his full height, standing over Izuku as the poor boy tried to make himself as small as humanly possible. Being overly cheerful when Bakugo was angry, by general rule of thumb, is a _bad _idea.

Bakugo was fuming, this whole day had just been one giant clusterfuck. First he bombed a pop quiz, then he found out that _Deku_ of all people was trying to mock him by being the only other person to put UA on his High School recommendation paper, then he got attacked by a fucking Villain of all damn things, got held hostage, and worst of all was_ FUCKING USELESS THE ENTIRE TIME_! He had to play fucking damsel in distress, and sit there like a fucking sack of potatoes while _Deku_ of all God Damned people saved his ass! And while _All Might_ watched to! But that's not all! Nonono, when he saw him following him, Deku had the fucking audacity to try to _run away _after all that _shit_ he just pulled!

So long story short. Bakugo was pissed.

"Did you _really_ try to run away from _me_!"

"Wha- I-I don't-"

"You really think you'd be able to pull that shit, make me look like a damn _fool_ in front of All Might, and then _run away from me_"

"N-No! Th-that's n-n-not wh-what I-"

"BULLSHIT!" Katsuki's yell was accompanied by a pair of explosions.

"I can handle my own God damn problems! If I get myself into a shitty situation, it's my own fucking responsibility to get myself out. But then you came in, made me look like an IDIOT, and then instead of facing me like a man, you FUCKING RAN!" His eyes were practically glowing red in the shadows cast by the setting sun.

"N-No! I-I wasn't running fr-from you"

"Oh?" Bakugo stilled, his eyes narrowing dangerously "Then who?"

Izuku gulped, his answer feeling pitifully weak even as he said it "A-All Might?"

**BOOM!**

He fell to the ground. The explosion that rocked the ally, even though it wasn't aimed at him, was powerful enough to have his ears ringing.

"First you make a fool of me, then you run, and now you're FUCKING LYING TO MY FACE!" Bakugo was shaking at this point. "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!"

Izuku only had a second to register a pair of hands gripping his collar before he was hauled to his feet.

"Well?"

"I-I do-don't u-und-"

"ANSWER THE GODDAMN QUESTION OR I'LL BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF!"

"I-I couldn't ju-just w-wa-watch y-you d-die, I-I ha-had t-to d-d-do so-somth-thing" Izuku stuttered, practically shaking like a leaf.

"SO WHAT!? I got myself into that shitty situation, it's my own fucking responsibility to get myself out!"

"N-no i-it wa-was m-my f-fa-fault"

"CUT THE BULLSHIT! I DON'T NEED YOU'RE FUCKING PITY!"

Bakugo pushed Izuku away, the green eyed boy managing to catch himself before he fell. Absentmindedly he noted that his shirt's collar was burnt and lightly smoking.

"P-pi-pity? Wha-No! I-I wa-was h-helping ou-out a f-friend in n-need!"

For five tense seconds, the ally was completely quiet. No yelling, no explosions, not even any wind, just pure silence.

"This is such fucking bullshit" The tension that had filled the alley disappeared not with an explosion, but with a exhausted sigh as Bakugo stuffed his hands in his pockets, and turned around to walk away.

"Wha-"

"Don't play dumb with me Nerd. Friend? I'm not your friend"

_'You've always looked down on me, ever since we were little. No matter how hard I worked to get to the top, you always acted like I needed help, always thought I couldn't handle anything by myself, always mocked me "One day I'll be just as strong as you Kachan!". You were quirkless, useless in a fight, I was on the top. And after constant practicing, after training till I dropped day in and day out to get to that spot, you, a scrawny nobody who hadn't put a day into training, hadn't gone to the gym even once, acted as though I was still on your level. At the very bottom. And no matter how many times I pushed you down to prove that all my effort had paid off, you continued to come back'_

"I don't want your friendship"

_'I Don't want your pity'_

He paused mid step and Izuku's hope, formerly smashed, soared…

"And quit with the 'Kachan' thing, it pisses me off"

Only to be smashed down once again.

And he walked away. Just like that.

Izuku stood in the alley for a while, just staring off into space, his mind trying to sort through everything.. He stood in the alley for a bit longer. Then just a bit longer. Then a little longer still, until he could form a coherent thought.

'_Later. I'll… I'll deal with everything later… when I get home'_

And so the green haired hero admirer turned and walked towards his house, the opposite direction of where Bakugo went.

Both of the students had been shaken by the conversation. As one sided as it was, it had been the first real conversation between the two in years, unfortunately as bright and flashy as it was, none of the really important things that _really _needed to be said were spoken of in any detail. And while neither of them knew it yet, that lack of communication in this conversation would come to cause many things to happen later down the line, many regrettable things. And as a pebble kicked off a ledge turned into a landslide, this too was perhaps the most regrettable mistake of all… because it was the only avoidable one.

-Rain of Sins-

A certain deflated number one hero walked through the streets, his time limit having expired almost an hour ago, and his sense of direction failing him horribly.

_'The kid was standing right in front of me, how did I manage to lose him!'_

He had managed to take about five or so steps before he got flocked by reporters, and by the time he got away from them the kid was long gone. The symbol of peace had tried to track after him. He had tracked down many dangerous villains in his time as a hero, what was the difference?

The difference was the child was apparently far more capable, having not only spotted the pro, but given him the slip multiple times before finally managing to lose him.

After twenty minutes of chasing dead ends Toshinori had attempted to ask to see if anyone else had seen where the boy ran.

Unfortunately he hadn't taken his appearance into account.

A tall, gangly man in his forties, asking around for the whereabouts of a teenage student who he wasn't related to, didn't know the name of, and who was currently running from him… Not his best moment.

He sighed as his phone rang, silently cursing when he saw the time. He had a scheduled meeting half an hour ago, about him teaching at U.A., with principle Nezu… who was currently calling him.

He could only sigh as he accepted the call. Even though he was quirkless, the boy had had an incredible drive to be a hero. So strong that, even though he almost certainly wouldn't pass, Toshinori knew he would attempt the U.A. entrance exam anyway. He would be able to find the boy then, at the exam, and make him his successor.

"_No. A quirkless person can't become a hero"_

He would attempt anyway… Right?

…

Nana would be so disappointed in him.

-Rain of Sins-

Izuku laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. It was well past sunset, but he was still wide awake, he was too busy unpacking the days events to be tired, but it was just so much.

Bombshell after metaphorical bombshell had been dropped on the poor teen, so you had to forgive him for being a bit stressed. Said stress had bled over into other things, like his attitude towards the pros at the rescue scene. His thoughts had been jaded and a bit cold, and while they were all technically right, that didn't mean they were deserved. Or his conversation with Kachan, he stuttered normally, but it wasn't usually that bad! He could barely get out a single word for heaven's sake! And Kachan, Kachan had…

No. He swallowed. Not Kachan… He had made it very clear how much he hated that name.

"_I don't want your friendship"_

'_Deep breath' _He told himself _'Of course he wasn't my friend, the evidence had been there in spades, I had just been too stupid to realize it' _He wiped at the tears, born of stress and emotional overflow, that were threatening to stream down his face _'He's basically the school celebrity while I'm the bullied loner. It doesn't matter that I have the best scores in our grade, our teachers still constantly pamper him while making things as hard as possible for me. He has an incredible quirk while I- I'm just a quirkless nobody'_

'_His quirk put him on the top of the world since the moment he first got it, while my lack of one…' _He rolled over, desperately trying to get away from that train of thought, only to find himself face to face with one of his All Might posters.

"_No. A quirkless person can't become a hero"_

The words echoed around his head with the force of a freight train, and the only thing that came to Izuku's mind was '_Why?'_

'_Why does _everything _come back to me being quirkless. A quirkless person isn't favored as much as someone with a powerful quirk. A quirkless person can't be a hero. A quirkless person gets scolded for running to help while Bakugo got unbridled praise. It all comes back to quirks. Every. Damn. Time. _Everything _is about quirks. Quirks run our society! Quirks are… They… wait'_

'_What exactly _**is**_ a quirk?"_

The question, blunt as it was, brought his mind to a screeching halt.

Scrambling for an answer to such a simple question, his mind turned to his classes.

"Quirks are a genetic mutation in the human genome that allow for the use of incredible powers" he spoke to himself, "These mutations can be passed down genetically, and first appeared over two hundred years ago. The first known case was a light quirk"

Simple question simple answer, straight out of the textbook. Except… that didn't really answer the question did it? Quirks were a mutation to human DNA, but what type of mutation allows its user to do things like spontaneously grow taller than a building? What about mutation type quirks? Having a tail or wings might make sense if you stretch science, but how did human DNA suddenly start mimicking lizard DNA so closely as to allow a person to share almost every trait with the animals, all the way down to behavior patterns? Speaking of animals, principle Nezu of U.A. was an animal who had a quirk, so quirks weren't just exclusive to humans.

Izuku pushed himself to sit upright as his brain tried to comprehend how his "Simple question" had turned into a labyrinth of mysteries.

Now that he was thinking about it, every history book he had ever read claimed quirks just "appeared" one day and became more common as time went on, and left it at that. But _why_? Every quirk biology book claimed quirks were the ultimate form of evolution, but that didn't make any sense. The theory of natural selection takes place over hundreds of generations, taking millions of years to make any major noticeable difference, quirks meanwhile appeared seemingly overnight, but even if that was the case how did it explain quirks that were based on human technology. The hero Ingenium was a great example of this, his mutation type quirk manifested as engines in his elbows.

Izuku stepped off his bed, made his way over to his school bag, and fumbled around in the dark for a few seconds before he managed to successfully pull out his biology book. He set it on his desk, turned on his table lamp and started flipping through the pages, hoping to find an explanation to his increasingly complex query.

What could possibly cause such an extreme shift almost overnight to not just the human population's DNA, but the animal population's as well. Some claimed that quirks had always been around, saying the "witches" from medieval times and their "magic" were just people who had quirks, but that explanation fell short to. If they actually _did_ have quirks they would have been passed on to their children, and what was the possibility that every quirk manifested before 200 years ago was an emitter quirk. Ancient mythical creatures like mermaids and minotaurs _maybe _could be explained as mutation type quirks, but again neither of those theories explains the sudden boom in quirks 200 years ago.

He finally arrived at the section on quirks… only to find a half page paragraph.

'_That can't be right'_ he thought while re-scanning the page_ 'There has to be more'_

But there wasn't any more. Just the singular paragraph that, after reading through it, barely contained any information at all. Most of it was just the author bragging about his other works, meanwhile the actual information provided could be best summed up as "Quirks appeared, so now we have them".

The book was closed with gritted teeth and tossed back in the general vicinity of where his bag was. The aspiring hero turned off his lamp and booted up his computer, the same computer he watched All Might's video on everyday as a kid. A quick click and his browser popped up

'_To cluttered' _was his first thought upon seeing the multitude the open tabs leftover from his previous uses, ranging from online games, hero newsboards, and school research assignments. Normally he would be more than capable of sorting through them all, but he was already exhausted from the previous disaster of a day, and now with this rabbit hole of a question eating at his mind, he just really didn't want to spare the mental effort to do so. With a few more clicks he had closed all the excess tabs and was on a blank search page.

The screen was completely white save for a search bar and the company logo. Just a few keystrokes and he'd be done, then he could go back to bed. Go to bed and finish thinking about everything that happened. But first he needed an answer.

You see, the funny thing about life is that, for all the incredible things that people do, the things that end up changing the world the most are almost always done on complete accident.

In his clearing of tabs, the young man who in another life would have become All Might's successor not half a day prior, had closed a tab he first opened nearly over a decade ago, and hadn't closed since. A tab with a very certain video that had inspired him to become a hero all those years ago, a tab that like a door of destiny had been closed to make room for a question.

As the clock struck midnight Izuku took a deep breath and typed out his question.

"What is a quirk?"

And outside his window… a butterfly flapped its wings.

-End Chapter-

**So… How's everybody doing? Thank y'all for taking the time to read this pilot chapter, it really means a lot. Um, this where authors usually add in notes and junk…**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**I mean, I guess I could talk about why I wrote this… *Sips Hot Chocolate* Well, I mean why not. OK so basically I was re-watching the show, and I realized that it really did a good job showing all the hero society's flaws via different characters. **

**I mean you have Stain for the whole "Heroes aren't really Heroes anymore". You have Endeavor and Bakugo (At the beginning of the series at least) showing how not everyone deserves their quirk. Shoto is a perfect example of "Quirk Breeding" and how morally disgusting people with power can be. Hitoshi (That's the purple haired general-ed guy right?) shows how people are discriminated against for having been born with the "wrong" quirk. Izuku's middle school shows how people are willing to bend the rules, brush things under the rug, etc for Bakugo (A bully who has used a very dangerous quirk on his classmate) and how people care more about a person's quirk than the person themselves. And of course Deku who shows just how little society cares about the people who don't fit the status quo, AKA he was told to kill himself and no one batted an eye (I'm pretty sure the quirkless suicide rate is insanely high in canon, something like 80% of all teens)**

***Takes a long sip of Hot Chocolate***

**And then they did nothing with any of it! They just kinda go "oh this is bad, but it turns out kinda ok for this one character, so onto the next arc!" Yea, sure it turned out good for Deku, but what about all the **_**other**_** 20% of the population that's quirkless? They're not getting all for one and magically being whisked away by the #1 hero to UA. And sure Izuku goes and saves Todoroki (sort of, he couldn't do anything about his Dad) but what about all the **_**other **_**kids in situations like that? Or even Shoto's siblings for that matter! And this just seems to happen again and again and again, one character with this problem is given a happy ending, but the problem **_**itself**_** isn't fixed! And Deku's just so damn happy to finally be a hero, that no one seems to want to break the news to him!**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**(This next part might contain a small bit of story spoilers but meh, who cares. If you care for minor spoilers skip the next two paragraphs)**

**So basically if the Main show is about how Izuku becomes All Might's successor and focuses solely on helping people instead of society as a whole, working his way from the top down. Then this fic is the yin to that yang, with him focusing on helping the world as a whole instead of exclusively targeting the people in it, working from the bottom up.**

**Izuku isn't going to be whisked away and have 90% of all his problems solved by All Might and a magic hair without working for it. He's going to have to claw his way up from the bottom, and see the problems of society's rotten underbelly in all their unholy gorish light in the process.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate* **

**His character, and all characters for that matter, will be the same at first (as close to cannon as I can write them) but they'll naturally change and grow through their experiences, all varying from "little change" to "Extreme motivational, and deep psychological outlook changes" by the end of the book, but that's a given with any story, and I wanna save that all for later ('cuz spoiler reasons)**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Ok so, another big thing. "The Butterfly Effect" one of the story's big theme things (I write in English, not the fancy BS writing they teach in school, so I don't know what 'big story force' translates to in fancy rich people talk). The story will follow the outline set in canon for the first bit because no action by Izuku will immediately have a giant impact on the story at large (For instance, even if Izuku never went to UA, the attack on the USJ still would have still happened because it was already planned out) but as things go on, and actions pile up and um… *Sips Hot Chocolate* I guess the best way to explain would be with another example. **

**(Again, minor spoilers I guess)**

**If the story goes according to the outline I have for it, after the fight between All Might and All for One, this story could be considered an AU of sorts (kinda). This doesn't mean I'll be tossing canon stuff out entirely, it just means it'll be different. For instance Overhaul and his gang will still be running around, it's just certain plans were never made because certain situations played out differently than in canon, so any plans will have to be different to acclimate those different outcomes.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**My writing schedule? Uh I'll try to have a chapter out every two weeks (You can't rush art!) if it takes a month between chapters I'm probably being beaten to a pulp by writers block or something, if I haven't posted in over a month and a half then something serious happened.**

**...**

**Or I ran out of Hot Chocolate and am going through withdrawal.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**One of those two.**

**Anything longer and I'm probably dead and/ or broke my computer.**

**… And that's just about every important detail I can think of right now. Any pairings are undecided (Read as secret), Hot Chocolate is delicious, seat belts are neat, etc etc.**

***Takes one last, long sip of Hot Chocolate***

**Uhhhhhhhh, again thanks for reading, and um, well ya see, I'm kinda out of Hot Chocolate now, so I gotta go get some more, um. I'll see y'all later.**


	2. Down the Rabbit Hole ch 1

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**So… people are actually reading this… gonna be honest, I wasn't expecting that, but seeing how many people like this feels really nice. **

**So here's an extra chapter as thanks, before I settle back into posting every two weeks.**

**Also, a quick side note. I write all my stories with a different writing software than FF.N's, and it turns out the transition between the software and FF.N does weird things to my poor files.**

**It doesn't corrupt them or damage them, it just likes to change little things here and there.**

**A perfect example of this was when I posted Rain's first chapter. Everything was going good, I was organizing all the desktop sticky-notes that I fill up with ideas that come to me when I write, and then suddenly I noticed something off about the preview from the corner of my eye. I looked closer to find something amazing.**

**Had I won the lottery? Was I messaged by God himself? Or maybe my long lost cousin turned out to be a Nigerian prince and he wants to send me gold, but he only needs my credit card information to do it.**

**No.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**All the line breaks were gone. **

**It was a fun thing to rush through trying to fix it before anyone decided to actually read the story, I panicked when I couldn't figure out where the line break button was on FF.N's layout (which is stupid because it's literally just at the top), so I put the story name where they should have been as a placeholder. But the look is starting to grow on me, so I think I'm just gonna keep doing it like that.**

**Long story short: If something looks off or it looks like something's missing (Like line breaks), blame the system and send me a message so I can fix it.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**But back to what I what originally saying**

**In honor of the people who took the time to read this, I present to you, Chapter 2.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Wait a moment, that last bit rhymed.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Now I feel like one of those old English poets who wrote in the language of "Ye-Elden". **

**Knealith beforith thine rhyming expertise thou unrhyming peasants!**

…

**Yea I'll just stick to writing my books.**

-Rain of Sins-

-Arc Start: Down the Rabbit Hole-

-Down the Rabbit Hole: Chapter 1-

Kurogiri had been having a good day, he really had. The sun was shining, the next episode of his favorite TV show came out, no fights had broken out in the bar, and he had even gotten an abnormally high tip from one of his regulars (not that he really needed it). It had just been an all round good day.

So of course it had to go horribly wrong.

Let it be known, Kurogiri liked his bar quite a bit. It was his work, his hobby, his passion, and his house all in one, with the first story being the bar, the second being guest rooms, and the third his own private sweep.

His bar was his own little place in the world, and overtime it had become something of a staple in the criminal underworld. It was the place where everyone could come, enjoy a nice drink, play a game of darts, and just relax and unwind, far away from the hardships of life.

Mobsters, gangs, murderers, thieves - anyone and everyone was welcome as long as they didn't disturb the peace his bar offered, not that anyone ever did. His bar was full of the type of people who you _really _wouldn't want to run into in an alleyway, and these people were more than happy to, err, let's say escort, any trouble makers away from their "leisure spot".

So you would think that with a small army of thugs, mercenaries, and killers, no one would be dumb enough to barge in, and try to take over his bar.

Except of course… someone was. And even worse than that, they somehow succeeded.

The warp quirk user placed the glass he had been polishing back in it's freshly cleaned cabinet, and took a glance at the bar's only other current occupant.

Tomura Shigaraki. The light blue haired man had barged into his bar covered in hands, and flanked by ten black armored men. He had brazenly declared the bar was now "under his ownership", and that all the customers needed to get out.

What happened next was predictable, everyone laughed at him and the biggest guy in the room, a friendly mercenary everyone nicknamed Big-Bob, had gotten up to throw him and his lackeys out. They quickly stopped laughing after Tomura turned Bob, the man who had been gushing over how he was going to be an uncle not a minute beforehand, into a pile of dust.

That's when it all went to shit. His customers all jumped to their feet and pulled out a myriad of weapons, knives, pistols, crowbars, etc, and rushed to avenge their friend. The armored men pulled out rifles, and Tomura dashed forward.

A minute and a half later and his beloved bar was covered in layers of blood and dust, his customers all either dead or fled. On the bright side of things, six of the ten men Tomura had brought were dead, with another seriously injured. Kurogiri could think David for that. His very first customer and most active regular had drawn his revolver (a gift from his grandfather, he would often brag) the moment Tomura opened his mouth, and managed to take three of the body guards down on top of putting a bullet to Tomura's shoulder before being dusted.

After the gruesome spectacle, Tomura had sat down at the bar to nurse his shoulder, close enough to grab the warper if he tried to use his quirk, and the remaining bodyguards had brought in and hooked up what appeared to be a vintage TV.

The men had then picked up their fallen comrades and left. Before Kurogiri could say anything though, the TV flickered on.

On the screen a masked man had appeared, he introduced himself as Tomura's teacher, giving a name to the red eyed man who had done nothing but glare at the bartender since he sat down.

Oh how Kurogiri was _so sorry _for Tomura getting shot in the shoulder, it's not like the idiot had decided to take on an entire bar full of pissed off thugs and mafia members with only ten men as backup.

This "teacher" had gone on to "clarify" a few things. He explained that those were his men, that he had a lot more of them, and that Kurogiri was to listen to Tomura's orders from now on.

When he had questioned as to _why _he should listen to the man who had killed his entire customer base not five minutes prior, the TV man simply laughed and calmly proceeded to give a _very_ vivid description of what would happen to him if he failed to comply.

Now Kurogiri was a reasonable man, and while he could firmly say that he had no qualms with tweaking his daily routine for the foreseeable future in order to _not_ get killed, he was still under the opinion that he should have had at least five minutes to gather his thoughts on everything before being hauled off to have his quirk examined by a doctor named Daryma Ujiko. A "doctor" mind you, who had lost his license a few years back.

After only a few minutes with the man and Kurogiri could honestly say he understood why he had lost it, to put it simply, the doctor was very… well he sounded like a mad scientist out of some fantasy book.

"Your quirk is far too fascinating to not research!" the man had explained "If I can find out how it works, it will bring me one step closer to creating the perfect masterpiece for my master!"

What Kurogiri found the oddest about the man, wasn't the way he worshiped his "master", but instead his willingness to answer all of Kurogiri's questions. He loved to go on and on about the "artwork" that his research allowed him to gift his master, and how he hoped to one day create the perfect masterpiece.

The Doctor had then gone on to inform him that Tomura was the man's successor, and how powerful this "All for One" was in physical strength as well as political influence, and sheer cunning. (Terrifying the mist made man to the core in the process)

After all the tests were done with and all his questions were answered (the one's he was willing to ask at least), Kurogiri was allowed to return home.

Well, perhaps "allowed to go home" was too kind of phrasing.

One of the Doctor's assistants had broken something and Kurogiri had been kicked out so the mad scientist could yell at them.

As he walked back to his bar, far to mentally exhausted to use his quirk, he realised something. The doctor, obsessed with his work and slightly off kilter he may be, was actually the nicest person he had met that day. He hadn't killed his customers, pointed a gun at him, or threatened to string him up by his intestines.

…

If that didn't say how bad his day had been, he didn't know what would.

Kurogiri let out a sigh and could only hope that someone out there was having a better day than he was.

-Rain of Sins-

Izuku was not having a good day.

Three and a half weeks had passed since he first asked his question, and he hadn't found _anything_.

Websites were just as bad as his biology book had been, vague at best and purposely misleading at worst. Social media and hero threads had proved to be even more useless, the results ranging from people brushing his question off and telling him to not worry about it, to openly laughing at him. A week in and he had finally gotten fed up enough to start messaging actual doctors about it, but that plan of action had lost its footing almost as quickly as it had gained it, with most not bothering to respond and the few that actually took him seriously clamming up when they realized he didn't have a quirk.

He had emailed college professors, scientists, and head directors of several research labs, his sheer number of emails sent guaranteeing him at least a few replies, only to meet the same result. They didn't take him seriously because he was quirkless. His latest reply from a doctor of St. Luke's International Hospital seemed to sum up all their thought processes.

"_Why bother with wanting to learn about quirks? You don't have one and aren't going to develop one. The only thing I can think of is that you want to see if there's a way to give you one. If this is the case, and I highly suspect it is, then I'm going to have to ask you to stop wasting important people's time with your childish fantasies"_

Izuku gave out a tired sigh and sunk into his textbook. Finding a way to gain a quirk would be wonderful, it really would, but that wasn't even what he was asking, he just wanted to know what a quirk even _was!_ At this point he would take literally any answer he could find.

How hard was it to explain what caused such rapid genetic mutation in the human populace, how it affected animals as well, how it happened everywhere on earth at the same time, how it incorporated artificial technology into these mutations, how it seemingly fused different species DNA at random, how it was able to break quantum physics at will (Nullifying gravity for example), and how it was able to do all of this with a time frame of a week at best and over one night at worst.

… Ok so maybe it _was_ a little difficult to explain all that, but explaining how nuclear fission worked was also a little difficult, and that didn't cause people to brush it off and go "Oh well".

The poor boy, after having realized he wasn't going to get any answers simply by asking around, had decided to start doing his own research.

Was it a good idea? Kinda.

Pros: He was now much more knowledgeable on the subject of genetics, would probably never have to study for another biology class unless he majored in it, could pick out what type of quirk a person had by looking at a graph of their DNA (Emitter, mutation, or transformation), and had memorized the entire human evolution chart.

Cons: He had now gone ten days without a full 8 hours of sleep at night, his grades were slipping (except biology), and he may or may not have developed a slight fondness for coffee.

Results: Lots of cool knowledge, but still no answer.

Unfortunately it was that second one that Izuku really cared about.

Now that's not to say everything had been for nothing, far from it, he might not have had an answer quite yet but he was much closer than before. He could feel it. His new knowledge had put him on the right track, and while it wasn't on par with any actual scientists, it was far above anything he was going to learn at his current school. Though he didn't realize exactly how far above the standard curriculum he was until he took a biology test two days ago.

A 96, the highest grade in the class by an entire letter grade, and when he looked to see what he got wrong well… On the back there was an eight point SAQ that asked how quirks were passed down from parents to children. Most of the class had gotten the question right, simply copy and pasting the two sentences answer they got in class the day before. Izuku meanwhile, may or may not have gone a bit overboard.

An hour into the test and his entire page was crammed full of giant paragraphs detailing how different types of quirks pass on differently, examples of how two parent quirks can fuse to create a "child" quirk of the two, quotes from several different studies and scientists, a graph of probability chances, and several of Izuku's own hypotheses on the subject matter, all in tiny handwriting.

His teacher had put a big question mark on the page and given him half credit.

Izuku shook his head, trying to get his thoughts back on track as well as fight off the drowsiness that had snuck up on him.

Coffee was a good substitute for sleep, but it wasn't a perfect replacement and the teacher's mundane droning wasn't doing him any favors either.

His research had given him answers, but not the ones he needed. The two main problems he found in his methodology were A) his lack of access to any form of information that wasn't either on Wikipedia or a study/interview he could find online. And B) how every time he found something that seemed it would lead somewhere, it turned into a dead end.

At least until last night.

Last night, when looking for some more obscure researchers who would be more likely to at least send him a response email, he stumbled upon a scientist who had immediately peaked his interest.

He was a well learned geneticist who had also been through medical school and was a certified doctor. But what really caught Izuku's attention was his work, the man had focused solely on better understanding how quirks worked, and how they affected the human genome. Further research revealed that many of the more advanced theories on quirkology were first written by him.

Granted "how do quirks work" is slightly different than "what is a quirk", but hey, it had been almost a month and Izuku was just taking what he could get at this point. Besides, the fact this man was actually looking into the mystery of quirks instead of just brushing it aside, like everyone else, was more than enough for the exhausted teen.

But there was a small problem.

The short list of information he had on the man, was all there was.

No date of birth, no pictures, and no records that the man even existed besides two research papers Izuku had found, the fact his name was credited in small text on the newest renditions of quirk theory, and an old news article saying the man had somehow lost his doctors license (of course it hadn't mentioned _why_ he had lost it, no that would be too helpful). The man was practically a ghost.

And as Izuku drifted off to sleep, he was at least able to take satisfaction in one small victory.

He at least knew the man's name.

Ujiko Daruma.

The creator the Quirk Singularity theory.

-Rain of Sins-

Bakugo was thinking.

Despite what most people assumed from his personality, Bakugo was more than some brainless brute. He might not be the Einstein of his generation, but he was definitely more than a few steps ahead of the extras he was surrounded by in class, he had to be if he wanted to be number one.

"_Brawn without a brain is like a car with no engine, while brain without brawn is like an engine with no car. Neither will move alone, it takes both to get anywhere in life"_

His mother had told him some variation of that when he failed his first test back when he was very young, he hadn't listened to her first lecture. Two weeks later and another F, she had tweaked it the second time around to the one he remembered today. She made it appeal to his dream of being the best. He knew this, knew she was trying to manipulate him, but even then.

It worked.

He hadn't failed a single assignment since, and his average for any class never dropped below a B. He was going to be the best, he was going to be number one no matter what it took. Which was why it was always so fucking infuriating that no matter how long he studied or how hard he tried, when the end of the grading period rolled around, he always came second in his grade's ranking. Right behind Deku. Every. Single. _Goddamn time._

Which was why he was thinking.

He had gotten second place ever since they first started ranking the students, all the way back in the end of elementary.

Always fucking second. Always behind fucking _Deku._

It was one of the reasons he hated him so much at times. Deku was smart, really fucking smart, but he didn't try to expand beyond his intelligence. And despite the fact he was an engine with no car, Deku had managed to beat him every semester. It was like a broken record that kept repeating itself over and over.

But not this time.

When they had gotten the results back this morning, _He_ was on top, not Deku.

Normally this would have been a time to celebrate, to rub it in the loser's face that Bakugo was the best. After all of these years he had finally won, finally proven that he deserved to be number one.

But it was all wrong.

This wasn't the glorious victory he imagined, this wasn't a triumph, no this past semester had been his _worst_ semester in years, barely scraping by in history with a B, but that wasn't even the worst part. Deku, the quirkless nerd who he had lost to again and again for _years_, wasn't in second place, wasn't even in third.

Deku was 6th.

And so Bakugo was thinking.

Deku had started coming to school with bags under his eyes, started missing homework, and started sleeping through classes. _Deku_ was fucking sleeping through class.

Something was wrong with the nerd, he was starting to act like an extra, which Bakugo knew he wasn't.

He didn't _like _Deku by any stretch of the imagination, but the wannabe had beaten him, even if it was only in their grades, that automatically put the nerd above the sea of extras.

What would cause the idiot to nosedive so suddenly, it was like he _wanted _Katsuki to beat him.

The explosion quirk user pushed his thoughts out of his mind. Just thinking around in circles wouldn't do anything, U.A.'s entrance exam was in nine months and Bakugo needed to start doubling down on his training.

If Deku wanted to become an extra, so be it.

Katsuki Bakugo was destined to be number one. Deku never had any part in that.

-Rain of Sins-

Izuku groggily opened his eyes to find an empty classroom, lit only by the evening sun. No Teacher, no students, no Bakugo.

A quick glance at his phone informed him that his face hadn't been written on, and that class had ended half an hour ago.

'_Of course they didn't wake me up' _was the first thought to run through his mind _'I'm just a nobody to them'_

"But I can change that" he mumbled through a yawn. "I'll prove I can be just as good of a hero as anyone else"

"_No. You can't be a hero without a quirk"_

But how could he? How could he even hope to be a hero when _the_ number one pro, the man who had inspired him to become a hero in the first place, blatantly told him that he couldn't.

How could he help anyone when he couldn't even save his childhood friend from a villain he helped escape?

How could he prove to his mother that he could be a hero without her worrying?

How could he-

His downward spiral was interrupted by his phone buzzing.

'_Later' _he told himself _'One step at a time, I'll find an answer, then I'll think about everything… Just...Just not right now'_

His mother was messaging him asking him where he was and if he was ok.

'_After school study group' _It would let her know he wasn't in any danger, and get him out of any trouble at the same time.

Izuku wasn't a compulsive liar by any means, in fact the phenomenon was quite rare, but everyone lied every once and awhile. Izuku was human, and as such was no exception.

But as he started typing his reply, two very different phrases echoed through his head.

"_**Everyone can be a Hero!"**_

"_No. You can't be a hero without a quirk"_

Liar

"_I fell asleep in class, just woke up" _He typed out.

The green haired boy didn't want to think about All Might right now, but one thing was for sure.

'_I'm not lying to anyone like that'_

A few minutes later and he was walking to the grocery store to pick up food for dinner tonight.

His mom had chewed him out about sleeping in class and tossed on his slipping grades as the metaphorical cherry on top to drive the point home. Halfway through her rant she stopped herself, told him to go pick up groceries, and said that they would finish their chat when he got home.

At first glance from an outside perspective it seemed a bit harsh of her. Izuku had been on the very top of his class since elementary school, now one bad semester and she was freaking out. But izuku knew she wasn't trying to be mean, she was just stressed, and more importantly...

She was just worried.

Izuku knew from a young age that his mother worried about him, and when he got a bit older he realized how stressed she was, but it wasn't until a few years ago that he realized how bad it really was.

When her husband first got sick, she picked up a job to help pay bills. After he died she had picked up another. When Izuku had come home one day and innocently asked what college was, she picked up two more. When Izuku was declared quirkless, she dedicated almost all her free time to being at home for Izuku, pushing away all of her friends and related family to make time for her son, only staying in contact with Bakugo's mom because he was friends with him as a kid. She cooked, cleaned, worked four jobs, and desperately tried to pay bills that always seemed just out of budget, often going entire weeks just eating scraps so Izuku could have a full stomach, this transitioned into the stress eating that had destroyed her figure when their budget became more stable

The problem wasn't that she didn't care about Izuku, it was that she cared too much.

And now his grades were slipping for the first time in his academic history and she went full momma bear mode, worried something was wrong, and angry at herself for not preventing it.

A sad smile graced his face.

He'd have to calm her down when he got home, maybe even cook dinner for her so she could relax.

But that was later. Right now he had to pick up some groceries.

-Rain of Sins-

Kurogiri was not in a good mood.

Not only had he lost his bar that morning, but when he got back from the Dr's lab (an old warehouse down in the middle of nowhere) Tomura had complained about all the blood and dust everywhere and told him to "clean all the filth up".

Well excuse him, but that "_filth_"was his former customers, it wasn't Kurogiri's fault they were all dead. No, the blame on that lied on another persons head. The same person, might he add, that was telling him to clean it all up.

But that wasn't all, no no no, Tomura just _had _to make everything more difficult.

When he had gone to simply warp everything away into the ocean, Tomura had flipped out.

"You can't use your quirk yet!" he had yelled "We're only on the starting level, we need to keep all out secret abilities hidden so the bosses can't prepare for them"

A few things

1)What the Fuck?

2)This was Kurogiri's quirk, _he _was the one to decide how he used it.

3)His quirk was already on the quirk registry, it was registered when he first developed it as a child, so the pros and law enforcement in general already knew about his quirk, it was why he had never used it to steal anything or do anything criminal with it.

4)What the Fuck?

So now here he was, browsing the cleaning section of the supermarket because the anti-vacuum cleaner decided to put dust everywhere and make him clean it without his quirk.

Kurogiri didn't even _have _any cleaning equipment besides the sanitizer he used for his tables and alcohol glasses. He had always just warped any mess away, but not this time apparently.

He had table polish, did that count? Did Tomura want him to just _polish _the dust away?

Kurogiri let out a sad sigh, he wasn't usually this negative but today was proving to be an exception for basically every rule he had.

He started counting up how much everything would cost while double checking his small basket as he turned a corner.

Only to drop said basket when someone ran straight into him.

The bartender just stood there for a few seconds trying to understand what happened, his mental math now floating around his head like a puzzle that had fallen and smashed itself to pieces on the floor.

Looking down he was greeted to a groaning teenager with a mop of green hair spiraled out on the ground. His cleaning supplies were on the floor, mixed with a large array of various ingredients such as carrots and onions. Kurogiri's first instinct was to scold the kid for not looking where he was going.

'_No' _he scolded himself _'I was the one who turned the corner so suddenly, there's no way he could have seen me coming. no one is as fault here'_

_Just because I've had a shitty day doesn't mean I have to make someone else's day shitty to'_

Reaching down he grabbed the boy's phone which had landed next to his foot, he was about to hand it back when something curious caught his eye.

On the phone several news articles were opened. Two were articles on quirkology, the rest…

Kurogiri's eyes narrowed dangerously.

'_Why is he searching for information on Dr. Ujiko?'_

It was a very good question, one that required an equally good answer if the kid was to stay out of any trouble.

He cast another look at the young man who was picking himself off the ground, this time looking for clues. His eyes caught sight of a book that had fallen from the boy's backpack.

"_Advanced Quirk theory Vol: 5, by Steven Joseph" _the book read.

Now Kurogiri knew something was definitely wrong, that book was _far _beyond the reading level of just any random student. He hadn't even understood half of what _first _volume talked about when he read it a year or two back, and now some middle schooler comes by reading highly advanced material while searching for information on Dr Ujiko. Something was up, but what could it pos-

Then it clicked.

Dr Ujiko had spoken at great lengths about his several assistants, and how he hoped they would one day help him create his greatest masterpiece. Now the Dr was a bit odd at times but even then, wasn't this kid a bit… young, to be an assistant?

And why was he in the grocery store of all places? You would think an evil genius would have better things for his great assistants to do, than run errands- wait.

Was… was the kid lost?

The lab _was _in the middle of nowhere, and the Dr seemed like the type of person who forgot to give out directions every once and awhile. Combine that with the fact Ujiko had said he had multiple labs around Japan, and often had people moved between them and well…

Kurogiri may have had a bad day, but that didn't mean everyone had to.

-The Rain of Sins-

"Ow" Izuku mumbled as he pushed his way to his feet, he had known running through the store to get home quicker was a bad idea, but he had wanted to get back home to his mom as fast as he could.

He had gotten all the ingredients without any problem though, so he figured he could try to multitask, looking up some info while he ran to the checkout line.

It obviously hadn't worked.

Looking up he was greeted by a strange sight. A man seemingly made completely of mist was holding Izuku's phone out to him.

"T-Thank you" he said as he grabbed his phone from the man.

"No problem young man, I'm sorry I caused you to drop your things, please allow me to help"

"S-Sure" he responded, not really sure what else to say.

A minute later and Izuku, with the help of the man, had collected all his stuff and put it neatly back in his basket. Deku was about to thank the man again before he broke the silence.

"By any chance, would you be looking for Dr. Ujiko's lab?"

"Wha- I-I mean absolutely!" He hadn't been, but now he knew about it he most certainly was.

The man gave a good natured chuckle. "I thought so, one moment" He spread out his hand and opened, wait was that a _portal? _

Izuku didn't get the chance to observe anything more, because after a second the man pulled out a pen and a small scrap of paper, closing the portal afterwords. He jotted down something on the paper before holding it out.

"Here" he said, offering it to Izuku "It's where his lab is, I was there earlier today"

Looking at the paper revealed an address that Izuku wasn't immediately familiar with, he looked back to the man to thank him (for the third time) only to find him walking away.

"W-Wait" he called "What's y-your name?"

"Kurogiri" the man answered as he turned around "Yours?"

"I-Izuku M-Midoria"

"Well then Mr Midoria, it was a pleasure meeting you, have a good day" Kurogiri said with a small bow, before turning back around.

Izuku stood there, watching the mist man as he walked away, before finally dragging his eyes back down to the small scrap of paper in his hand.

A grin spread across his face.

"I have a lead"

The butterfly had flapped its wings, and now the storm was brewing.

-End Chapter-

**Ok. Important things. **

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

** In the show Izuku gets his dreams broken and then immediately afterward gets chosen as All Might's successor. He never really had time to think about the conversation on the rooftop, jumping from one big event to another (Roof to villain attack to All Might again) and as such I don't think it ever really set in for him.**

** His idol, All Might himself, **_**the**_** number one hero in the world, told Deku to give up on his dreams because he wasn't capable of being the thing he had always tried so desperately to become.**

** In any other story this would have been, not just a character development moment, but a character **_**defining **_**moment. It would have affected every action they made going forward, and completely changed the way they viewed their life.**

** Everyone had given up on Izuku, even his own mother, All Might was all he **_**had**_**. And now he finds out that All Might had given up on him too, and in less than five minutes of meeting him?**

** This story is dependent on Izuku not meeting All Might right after rescuing Bakugo, and because of this he won't be able to just kinda forget about it like he does in the show.**

**Part of me wants to just have him brush it off (It would be so much easier to write), but that really doesn't do his character justice. So for a while (when I was first mapping the story out) I was caught on where it should go.**

**If Izuku brushes the whole talk off, it would feel artificial and forced, meanwhile if he didn't brush it off and let it change him, it wouldn't be **_**Izuku **_**anymore, it would just be an OC wearing his skin. **

**What I eventually settled on is that I'm going to have Izuku go into denial for a little bit, pushing the issue off just for a few chapters so I can use it not by itself, but in combination with another development moment. That way I can push it in some direction other than the incredibly negative and self destructive one of "No one believes in me, no one thinks I can do it, my bullies were right, my dream is impossible, I have no purpose, I have nothing"**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**You know that does sound like a good prompt for another fic. **

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

"**With the pressure of the entire world bearing down on him every day of his life, it was only a matter of time before Izuku snapped, and you know what they say, 'The stronger the man, the more broken the soul'. And now with All Might, his last bastion of hope, having turned on him just like everyone else, well… Perhaps it's time for the world to face the monsters ****it makes."**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Imma write that down real quick**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Oh, I forgot to say this last chapter, but I haven't read the manga or light novels, all my knowledge comes straight from either the anime, MHA memes, or spoilers dropped by some of my friends **

***Glares at discord contact list***

**That being said, this story kinda hinges on several characters the anime has made clear exist, but that haven't had very much, if any, screen time.**

***Cough* Dr Ujiko *Cough***

**So in order to combat this general lack of any known personality, I have employed the use of a weapon feared by Jr high and High school teachers around the globe.**

…

**Wikipedia**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Yup.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**I'm doing my homework to make the characters genuine, but if for whatever reason I get some fact wrong, like saying Tomura has light grey hair instead of light blue, and I get charged with heresy and tossed off a cliff, well… **

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Blame Wikipedia**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**And toss my Hot Chocolate with me, it's my only real friend. **

***Glares at discord contact list full of good show spoiling criminals***

**Oh yea, and for the guy who asked what toothpaste I use to not have my teeth fall out from all my Hot Chocolate.**

… **I know you're actually my dentist in disguise. Fool me once, shame on me, but I ain't falling for the same trick twice!**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Also people are apparently viewing my profile, so there goes that last excuse for not putting anything there. I cobbled some info together and filled the darn thing out properly, so if you're bored go check it out (Now featuring **_**at least**_** 20% more profile than my previous profile)**

**-Next chapter: November 23rd (ish)-**


	3. Down the Rabbit Hole ch 2

**Howdy everybody.**

**Quick notice.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**There were a few problems with the first half of chapter 2 when it was first published, but I went and fixed it all. Now that it's all fixed and junk, everything flows much better.**

**If you want to see the fixes, I suggest you go back and re-read the beginning section with Kurogiri. It was the one with the most mistakes, and the worst pacing. It's not necessary and I didn't add any key plot points, but it reads better, and has some more ~flavor~ text.**

-Rain of Sins-

-Down the Rabbit Hole: Chapter 2-

Izuku was nervous.

…

Ok maybe that didn't really do the situation justice.

Izuku was, and always had been, a tad socially awkward, as well as being an individual who naturally shied away from attention. Unfortunately it wasn't until he was practically a block away from his destination that he realized how much his plan went directly against both of those things.

'_It sounded fine at the time' _He reasoned _'Just go up, knock on the door, ask if Dr Ujiko worked there, and if I could talk to him' _

Yes, walk up to an unknown door, knock, put all attention on him, and ask a complete stranger if they knew if another complete stranger worked at the building, and then ask if he could talk to said stranger. All perfectly normal and easy for someone like Izuku to accomplish, especially at midnight of all times.

… he was really starting to wish All Might hadn't saved him from the sludge villain.

After he got the address from Mr Kurogiri, Izuku had gone home, gotten scolded by his mother, gotten cried on by his mother, and then made dinner for and ate with his mother. His original plan had been to get a good night's sleep and then go in the morning, hopefully well rested enough to not make a complete fool of himself.

Two and a half hours of tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep, and he had decided to just get it over with, throwing the address into his phone's map, only realizing what time it was when he did all the other problems with his plan. When he was cold, tired, and less than a block away from his destination.

Izuku let out a sigh bordering between exhausted and exasperated.

His "determined" or "hero" mindset and his normal mindset were very different, anyone who had seen the two could attest to just how different he acted when he flipped between the two. A bold young man, determined enough to run headfirst into danger with a smile on his face, became a stuttering boy who couldn't so much as talk to a girl without dissolving into an incoherent mess.

Needless to say, they didn't always work together the best. His current situation being a fine example of this. Plans made when he was in hero mode didn't tend to work that well after it wore off.

'_Come on Izuku, you can't give up now, you'll never be a hero if you can't even knock on a door!'_

The quirkless boy steeled his resolve as he turned the corner, preparing to face the place that could very well hold the answer to the question he'd been chasing for over a month now, only to find…

"Is… Is that an old warehouse?" he asked no one in particular "No, I-I must have put in the wrong address."

It was one of the only logical conclusions his worn out brain could come to. Why would the scientist who had almost single handedly created the basis for modern day quirk theory be working out of an old abandoned concrete hut in the middle of downtown.

But as he checked the map, then the address, then pulled out his scrap of paper to double check, hit his phone a few times, checked the map again and then re-entered the address in his phone, another logical conclusion came to him.

'_D-Did Mr Kurogiri lie to me' _he wondered, but no, that didn't make sense either. What would he get from sending Izuku on a wild goose chase for a made up lab, plus he had referred to the man as Dr Ujiko, not Scientist Ujiko, meaning he had to have some previous knowledge of the doctor, which supported the theory he knew him.

'_You've come too far to chicken out now' _Izuku scolded himself as he forced his feet to move towards the door. _'Besides, what's the worst that could happen'_

-The Rain of Sins-

Daruma Ujiko was an oddity of a man. If you were to ask his assistants or anyone else who worked for him, they wouldn't say anything downright _negative _about the doctor, but they would definitely make it known that he had his issues, just like everyone else.

He was overbearing, constantly checking on the various projects he had given to his employees, and critiquing them as they worked. He liked to micromanage, seemingly determined to have a hand in everything that was going one, all the way down to walking around and testing various appliances to make sure they were working and well stocked. He was unempathetic at times, uncaring for reasons or excuses for missing deadlines (Unless it was a really, _really_ good one). But one word seemed to come up much more than any other in the hushed conversations in hallways.

He's a perfectionist.

Now that last one seemed a bit unfair, all the other ones sure he could totally agree with, but he wasn't a perfectionist.

No, Ujiko knew that not everything could be perfect, in fact very few things ever could. This was why he put so much time and care and effort into his creations. They were his artwork, they were his children, they were his gifts to his master, and one day he would create his magnum opus. His true masterpiece.

There would be no flaws, no errors, it would be what so few things could ever achieve.

Perfection.

However.

Just because he didn't expect perfection from his assistants, he most certainly expected them to do their jobs _right_.

"This lab was supposed to be completely set up and running _three_ days ago, so can anyone explain to me, why the security system HASN'T EVEN BEEN STARTED ON YET!"

"W-Well sir we w-were running perfectly on schedule, e-even ahead of it actually, u-until a few weeks ago."

"Oh?" The doctor paused, turning to the brave worker in a lab coat who had interrupted his, he sent a quick glance at his watch, now 25 minute rant "Well then why didn't you say so sooner? It's not like that doesn't change the fact you are now _behind_ schedule!" He swatted at her with the small stack of papers in his hand, growling when his height caused him to miss her head and lightly wack her shoulder instead.

"S-Sir we can explain!"

"Well then explain. Now."

"Heroes." A woman from the small group of workers he had been scolding for the past half hour stepped forward, he recognized her as the scientist he put in charge of this (very unfinished) lab.

"A string of robberies took place and Hero activity skyrocketed, we had to slow down everything to avoid detection." She said with her hands clasped firmly behind her back "It was my order sir, if you're going to punish someone then I'm the one at fault."

The doctor gnashed his teeth and turned away from the group to find something to punch. The closest potential victim was a box lying on the ground, which soon became a very dented box after a quick kick to its side.

"It's always Heroes this, Heroes that… They don't even know the lab's here and they still seem hell bent on causing me problems." The short genius grumbled some choice words under his breath before spinning back around to his people, jabbing the lady with his papers

"Fine, I'll let it slide. But just this once!" The crowd let out a sigh of relief "Now what are you all still doing here? Scram! Run! Back to your stations! I want this lab up and running by Sunday- no- Friday! And if it's not damn _sparkling_ when I come to check on it again, I'll have all of you scrubbing toilets for a year!" He yelled as they all ran off with relieved smiles on their faces "With a toothbrush!".

The doctor took a moment to compose himself, panting slightly from all his yelling. Feeling a hand lightly pat his head, he swatted at the offending appendage with his trusty paper stack.

"Thank you for your understanding Dr Ujiko" Yuyara Ito, the lab's head scientist, said as she calmly walked past him, a friendly smirk on her face.

The doctor growled as he attempted to put his (imaginary) hair back in place… stress and age did terrible things to one's style.

"I would fire her _and_ her sassy-ass attitude if she weren't so damn good at her job" He complained to no one in particular as he watched her walk away.

He sighed as he rubbed his temple and ran through everything in his head, trying to figure out how far back this would push his plans, when a light knock echoed from the door. The mad scientist raised his head, about to yell at someone to answer it, before pausing and letting out an annoyed huff when he realized he just sent them all off.

'_I swear to God Kurogiri' _He complained to himself as he marched towards the door_ 'I know I said "Come back anytime if you need anything" but I figured it was implied "anytime" didn't include THE MIDDLE OF THE DAMN NIGHT!"_

"What do you want now!?" He yelled as he swung the door open, only to find…

'_That's not Kurogiri' _His sleep deprived mind noted_ 'It's just a kid' _

And Indeed there was, in fact, a kid standing at the door.

A few moments passed with the two both staring at each other, but just as the green haired boy worked up the courage to say something, Ujiko came to a conclusion.

'_Not my kid, not my problem'_ He told himself as he shut the door.

…

'_Wait'_

He stopped a few paces from the door '_There's a kid at the door.' _He blinked behind his goggles_ 'There's a kid at the door of one of my secret labs'_

Shit

He made a 180 degree correction to his course and flung the door open.

"Kid!" He yelled at the teen who appeared to have been dejectedly walking away "Get over here!"

The "Kid" scrambled back towards the door, his face seeming like it couldn't decide if it should smile in joy or cry in terror… or do both at the same time.

"What the hell are you doing here!?"

The boy tried to respond, he really did, but with the traits of "bad at talking to people" "bad at talking to strangers" and "bad at talking to angry people" forming a metaphorical bingo, all that came out was a noise that most closely resembled a porcupine dying in an echo chamber.

"... What?"

"I-I-I"

"Spit it out boy!"

"I-I'm l-looking f-for D-Dr U-Uj-Ujiko"

The scientist's eyes narrowed to a dangerous degree, as his left arm slipped under his lab coat and thumbed the pistol that sat at his side.

He was a scientist a doctor, and his quirk wasn't combat oriented, but that didn't mean he was defenseless. Any Villain dumb enough to not carry any form of protection, wouldn't be a Villain for very long.

"You're looking for Daruma Ujiko?"

"Y-Yes, do y-you know h-him?"

Ujiko took a moment to better examine the boy. His green hair was disheveled as if he had just crawled out of bed, he was wearing blue jeans, sneakers, and a white T-shirt with the words "T-Shirt" scribbled on the front, on top of that he had a jacket haphazardly thrown on to protect him against the night's cold.

His jeans had small pockets, to small to be concealing any guns, but still able to fit a pocket knife in each. His shoes, again, to small to carry a gun, but small knives could easily be slipped beneath the soles. No bags that could be explosives and his shirt lacked any sort of carrying capacity. The most dangerous variables were the boys jacket, which had big enough pockets to hold a small gun or large knife, and that the kid was scrawny enough to have knives or even a small handgun strapped to his chest, arms, or legs without causing any real displacement of his clothes. There were no signs of a mutation type quirk, which meant the kid most likely had an emitter or transformation type quirk, those were the most annoying because they were the hardest to make educated guesses about from appearances alone.

Combat analysis:

The kid couldn't be armed with anything more than light weapons, but had an unknown quirk which could prove to be very dangerous.

Ujiko on the other hand had a heavy pistol, a not set-up security system, a small squad of guards patrolling the building, and a handful of nomu that had been transferred to the lab yesterday, although it would take time for either of the latter groups (his heaviest hitters) to get to his location.

He brought a hand to his goggles, making a show of adjusting them, as if to see the kid better.

'_He's here alone'_ The doctor observed as he scanned the courtyard and adjacent abandoned warehouses with the infrared vision he had enabled on his goggles.

'_He's either really confident in his abilities, or… he's an idiot'_

"Well of course I know him" He said, deciding to take a risk and gauge his opponent's reaction "He's me"

The kid's eyes grew to the size of saucers and his jaw dropped.

"I-I, y-y-you're?"

"Yes, I am doctor Ujiko. Might I ask who you are, and more importantly why you're here"

"I-I-M-My n-na-name i-is Iz-Izuku M-Midoria, a-and I-I"

"Stop stuttering and spit it out boy!"

"I NEED TO ASK YOU A QUESTION!"

"Oh really?"

Ujiko leaned forward slightly to disguise the motion of him pulling the gun out of its holster and bringing it up to his chest.

"And what question would that be?"

The gun's safety was flicked off with an inaudible click.

"Because, well let's just say, I _do _hope it's a good one."

The gun was now aligned with the boy's head, hidden perfectly behind Ujiko's lab coat.

A bullet hole in his coat wouldn't be that big of a deal, it could always be replaced. The boy's head on the other hand…

The kid tracked down a disgraced scientist.

A man who had his entire presence practically erased from the world, every book he had ever written, burned or in his own possession, the Internet scrubbed of his existence by All for One's top hackers.

A man who only ever left the safety of his labs when traveling between them, and even then only traveling via a nomu with a warp quirk.

A man who was one of the very few to work for All for One directly.

Learn of his existence, pinpoint where his hidden labs were, pinpoint which one he was at and _when _he was at it (Because he never stayed in one place for very long), and then corner him at midnight when no one was around, all to ask a question?

It better be a very, _very_ good question.

The boy clenched his fists and took a deep breath.

The scientist steadied his gun and prepared himself.

"WHAT IS A QUIRK!?"

...

...

...

...Ujiko wasn't drunk enough for this.

Did Yuyara need a live body for experimentation?

No wait, this lab was to see if there was a way to add quirks to nomu after they were created, not for making the creatures.

But she could still use one right?

Meh, it didn't really matter.

He'd hand the kid off to the lab head, and then finally get some sleep.

-Chapter End-

**Short chapter is short, I mainly just wanted to get this out for the notice at the top, but don't worry chapter 4 will be normal length and will still be coming out next week.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**So what I'm really excited about with this story, is that I get to play around with one of my favorite toys.**

**~Perspective~**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**You see, if you think about it.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**No one ever sees themselves as the "bad guy", everything they do is "good" in their eyes.**

**For example ('Cuz examples are fun)**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**To an average civilian, a bank robber who tried to steal a few thousand dollars, and shot a policeman in the shoulder when he was cornered is a "Bad guy".**

**But to the father who was frantically trying to get money for his daughter's medical care, turning to desperate solutions when no one would help him, his actions are completely justified. To him he's the "Good guy".**

**So who's really right in that situation? The man has a valid reasoning for his actions, one that most people would deem as "moral", but the banks are full of the people's money, if they get shut down thousands of people could lose their entire life savings, an event that is very much "not moral".**

**So who's right? **

**None of 'em are. No one's truly right, but they all think they are, they completely believe with every fiber of their being that they hold the moral high ground, and **_**that **_**is what makes it so interesting.**

**(Granted there are exceptions to this, yada yada, but a soldier doesn't fight a war for a cause he doesn't believe in)**

"**So is Deku gonna be a Villain?"**

**I dunno, depends on your perspective, but to him, he's gonna be the world's damn greatest hero.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**On another note, I have little sticky notes that I call "goal notes", and everytime the story reaches the goal on one of 'em I put it on the Goal Wall.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**So far we have "1 favorite" "100 views" "500 views" "50 followers" "10 reviews" "1000 views" "500 visitors" and "50 favorites" on the goal wall.**

**The next batch of goals is "100 followers" "2000 views" "100 favorites" and "1000 visitors"**

**(Views = # of times the story has been opened, Visitors = # of people that have opened the story)**

**So yea. Follow, favorite, review, tell all your friends about this story, and together we shall rule the galaxy with an iron fis- err I mean, we'll fill out the goal wall.**

**Yup.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Just the Goal Wall.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Nothin' more to see here folks.**


	4. Down the Rabbit Hole ch 3

**Surprise! November 23(ish) can also mean November 22nd! Now as for **_**why**_** I decided to post a day early… **

***Confetti popper goes off***

**Congratulations everyone, Rain of Sins hit 100 followers! (And 69 favorites *Wink*)**

***Awkward cheering in background***

**That's another sticky note on the goal wall!**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Ok so everybody, ima answer some questions real fast in celebration.**

***Pulls out a crumpled piece of paper from pocket and starts smoothing it out***

**Let's see here… Ok so starting from the top.**

**Yes, I really do drink Hot Chocolate while I write.**

**No, it's not just some "Internet personality"**

**And no, I ain't givin' up my secret toothpaste!**

-Rain of Sins-

-Down the Rabbit Hole. Chapter 3-

Despite what the outside of the building implied, the inside was very much not abandoned, full of people in lab coats running around doing various tasks.

Izuku wore a gobsmacked expression on his face as he was led through the stale white hallways of the lab by Dr Ujiko. It wasn't a grand tour of the facility by any means (He didn't even know where he was being led to), but even just the things he could glimpse through cracked open doors and clear windows had him speechless.

'_Woah, is that a DNA sequencer?! I almost didn't recognize it do to how advanced it looks! Are they setting up a cryogenic storage facility over there!? Holy crap, that's a CRISPR machine! I thought they stopped developing that tech back whe-! Wait, what are those giant glass tubes!?'_

The green haired teen had his eyes opened as wide as they could go, determined to see as much as possible in the underground lab that looked like something straight out of a sci fi film.

Of course the irony of this is, despite how determined he was to see everything, he didn't notice the giant metal door locking behind him when he entered the building, the small squad of guards that had fallen into line on either side of him, or the giant lizard like creature with an exposed brain stalking him from the air vents, ordered to pounce if it sensed the boy activating his quirk… ironically the scariest of those three was also the least dangerous to the very quirkless Izuku.

Despite the amazing situation (Or perhaps because of it), Izuku's curiosity was still strong enough to rear its head at the worst of times.

"U-Um e-excuse me Dr U-Ujiko" He stuttered "W-Why are they w-working when the lab i-is, well, y-you know…"

Izuku had been lead down to the third level of the lab, and while this floor alone had enough machinery and scientific know-how to put most professional institutions to shame, the second had been filled with half done wiring, partially set up lab equipment, and various machines covered in plastic tarps, and the first floor… Well, there were enough boxes that Izuku hadn't realized he was being lead into a lab, until the second level.

"They're behind schedule on getting the lab completely set up, but they still have the common sense to get started on their other projects" The scientist huffed "They just missed one deadline, they're not suicidal enough to miss two. Now be quiet, we're almost there."

Now Izuku didn't exactly know where this "there" was, but his social anxiety assured him that he didn't need to ask, so instead he focused on observing the man who in front of him instead.

People always say that when you meet a celebrity in real life, they're almost always shorter than you imagined them being. Izuku had never really believed in those sorts of myths before but Dr ujiko was, err, well he wasn't exactly what you would call a tall person.

From what the teen could tell, the man was standing somewhere around 5 feet tall (1.524 Meters), not a midget, but considering Izuku (a middle schooler) had to look down when talking to him, it was definitely a noticeable factor. The man had a fair amount of weight, an amount that would usually look relatively normal on anyone else, but that was further exemplified by his short height, giving him a slightly egg-like appearance. The man hadn't a spare hair on his head, it seeming to have all migrated to his very bushy, and very unkept mustache. Toss on some steampunk-esk goggles and a lab coat to top it all off, and you have the very unique appearance of the famous Daruma Ujiko. Am man who, Izuku could firmly vouch, had no right being so damn intimidating when he looked like a mini Dr Eggman from the Sonic games.

Approaching the end of the hallway, a large metal door slid away to reveal what appeared to be a breakroom of sorts. Crisp blue cushions covered couches that lined the sides of the room, a microwave with several fish pastries in it sat in a corner, and in the center of the room several metal chairs were strewn around a coffee table, all angled so that they were facing the TV on the wall.

Ujiko nudged Izuku into the room and gave him a shooing motion, the boy took this as in invitation to sit down on one of the couches.

"Stay still and don't touch anything" He said as he fished his phone out of his pocket "Don't be loud either, I'm making a call"

The guards that had been following them took positions on either side of the door, and the doctor grumbled something along the lines of "Couldn't get the lab ready in time, but of course they got the break room done" as he started pushing buttons.

With armed guards standing around menacingly, and his "host" of sorts impatiently tapping his foot as he waited for his phone call to connect, Izuku was left to his own devices.

Looking around the room (what else was he gonna do) the teen was greeted with two people he hadn't seen at first.

Two lab employees had been on their break when Izuku and co had entered, they had peaked up in interest before quickly agreeing that it was "Above their pay grade" and went back to their conversation.

"I'm telling you man, All Might's quirk has gotta be a mutation type, there's no way a normal human could ever punch that hard"

"No way, it's definitely a transformation type quirk. Think about it, in all his years of heroing we've never seen him without a full body suit, I guarantee you that whenever he activates his quirk - Don't give me that look Fred, we've had this conversation before, he yells out his smashes as a way to activate his quirk!- When he activates his quirk, I guarantee you it does something to his muscles, kinda like a 'Turbo boost' of sorts"

"U-Um excuse me"

The two friends looked up from their small debate to the source of the disturbance.

"A-All Might's quirk i-is actually an e-emitter t-type" Izuku nervously stated while scratching his neck.

"Look kid, this isn't a playground, the adults are talking, now shoo"

"Oh come on Fred, don't be such an ass, the kid's only trying to give an opinion" The second scientist motioned to the green haired boy "Now you said an emitter quirk? Why would that be?"

"W-Well y-you see, i-if you look at when All Might does any of his smashes, you'll notice t-they all share one key detail that most people tend to overlook" Pulling out his phone he started to flip through various photos, looking for an example to use "H-Here, what do these four pictures have in common" He held out his phone which showed All Might using various special moves in combat

"Uhhh, I mean he's punching?"

"W-Well yes, but that wasn't what I was talking about. Here, look closer" Zooming in on the photos he showed them again, this time even bringing up a video for reference"

"... Look kid, I really don-"

"Steam" Fred was cut off by his friend "Fred it's steam! Look, he's making steam!"

Fred leaned in closer, squinting at the photo before his jaw dropped "Holy shit!"

"Exactly!" Izuku was in game mode, stutter completely gone "Every time he attacks he gives off steam! I don't know for sure, but I believe that, since he's never shown any form of heat related abilities, it's a byproduct of his quirk, and what's the type of quirk that has been scientifically proven to have the highest chance of giving off a byproduct?"

"Emitter quirks" The two men responded, their voices a whisper as the realization dawned on them.

"Exactly!" Izuku answered.

'_At first I thought it was a transformation type' _He reflected_ 'After that show on the roof, how could I not? But he said he's been deteriorating since his fight two years ago, meaning the difference between his two forms must not have originally been so drastic (If there was any difference at all), but now that there _is _such a big difference, he's pushing his quirk the extra mile to save face and keep the public happy, which would also explain why his time limit is so short'_

A rare frown graced the boy's face as he thought back to the roof _'I know it's for the best, but he's lying to millions of people. Has been for years if he's to be believed… '_

"Kid"

Izuku was snapped from his thoughts by Dr Ujiko, who had walked over at some point during the conversation. A cautious but undoubtedly curious look filled his eyes, his phone held closed and forgotten at his side.

"Come here"

He lead Izuku out into the hallway, out of hearing range of the two employees.

"Alright kid" The doctor turned to the boy "You show up at my lab in the middle of the night, ask a stupid question that even a kindergarten teacher could answer, and then immediately afterword proceed to run mental circles around some of my best employees as if they were children" His eyes narrowed "You have 30 seconds. Explain."

"I-I w-well y-yo-you s-see I-I"

"No stuttering! It wastes time and is incredibly annoying. 25 seconds left"

Izuku opened his mouth to speak, paused, closed it, took a deep breath, and began again.

"I-I'm quirkless sir!"

Ujiko raised an eyebrow and motioned for him to continue.

"I'm quirkless. I'm quirkless, and I was born into a world where that's seen as a disability" He clenched his hands "No matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I work, no matter what I do, it always comes back to quirks!"

The things he had been pushing off, the things he didn't want to think about, were coming back to him, but this time there was no _'I'll deal with it later'_ to help him.

"It doesn't matter if it's authority"

"_Kid, you have a second pinky toe joint. It's very unlikely you're ever going to get a quirk"_

"Friends"

"_I Don't want your friendship!"_

"Family"

"_I'm so sorry sweetie"_

"Or even if it's the person I always wanted to be!"

"_No. A quirkless person can't be a hero."_

Faces flashed through his mind. Dismissive, Angry, Sad, Disappointed.

"It doesn't matter_ who_, it doesn't matter _why_, it doesn't matter _where_! It always comes back to me being quirkless! It _always_ does, everytime! And so I just want to know" Tears were streaming down his face, the emotions he had been bottling up, finally spilling over "JUST WHAT IT IS THAT MAKES ME SO WORTHLESS TO EVERYONE!?"

His cry, filled with years worth of emotions and grief of, seemed to deafen the entire lab.

For a few moments everything was perfectly quiet.

Then Izuku fell like a puppet with its strings cut, just barely managing to catch himself on the closest wall, silent sobs racking his entire frame.

Ujiko watched the entire ordeal silently before checking his watch.

"30 seconds exactly" He "Hmmm"ed as he glanced at the boy

'_He has a good head on his shoulders, is plenty knowledgeable, a quick thinker, and from what I can tell, has a decent grasp on quirk theory' _A crash followed a muffled shout from the construction on the floor above had the him internally cringing _'And considering the lab was supposed to be at least _operable_ a week ago and most likely won't be for another 5 days, I'm behind schedule, a few weeks at best and a month at worst, it would definitely be helpful to bring on some more hands to help speed everything up, especially someone who has shown they can outdo my current employees, and outdo them by quite a large margin. Hmmmm, you know, with a bit of training…'_

"Alright kid, you've earned yourself a single shot. A chance at a chance, if you will"

"Wha?"

"But I ain't handing out charity here, you gotta at least know what you're doing, and I don't have the time to go interviewing every nutjob who has half a brain" The doctor pulled a towel from his lab coat, the kind used to clean up spilled chemicals, and handed it to Izuku "You need to prove that you deserve it" He continued as the aspiring hero wiped the wetness from his face "So I have something to determine just that"

"Wh-What's that?" Izuku managed to get out between hiccups

"A question. One question, here and now, no preparation. If you get it right, I'll answer your question" Izuku's eyes widened "But there's no partial credit, either you get it right" Ujiko crossed his arms "Or you don't"

"Th-That's"

"Unfair? Unreasonable? Life doesn't care about any of those things, it doesn't care if you're ready" He looked Izuku in the eye "And it doesn't care if your quirkless. So, do you accept?"

"I-I" Midoria gulped as he straightened himself and finished wiping away the last of the tears from his face "Yes" He answered, pulling his emotions together as much as possible "Yes, I do"

"Alright then" Ujiko stroked his mustache in thought "Let's see, you clearly know your stuff when it comes to quirks, let's work with that"

As the elusive scientist was thinking, Izuku was scrambling to prepare himself.

"_What is a quirk?"_

He had spent a month searching for an answer to the question, he had spent a month writing letters to anyone who would listen, he had spent a month constantly being laughed off by people, he had spent a month researching countless articles only to find nothing, he had spent a month trying to answer the one _annoying _question, only for it to all come down to another question.

Call it petty, call it him being overly persistent, but he was getting an answer damn it!

"What" Ujiko started.

'_Here it comes!'_

"Is the most important part of any quirk?"

…

'_What?'_

Did he mishear him? That was a-

'_No'_ Izuku cut off that train of thought as quickly as possible, "What is a quirk" was also supposed to be a simple question and look where that led him. _'There's definitely something deeper at play here'_

Most people would respond with "How powerful it is", "It's usefulness in combat", or even "How 'heroic' it was" but those views were all based on how society views quirks, not quirks themselves. It's usability? No that's too vague. It's uniqueness? Water quirks are relatively rare and are highly sought after as firefighters, meanwhile strength quirks are a dime a dozen, meaning only the extremely powerful ones ever really make a huge name for themselves.

Izuku opened his mouth to give his answer, only to snap it back shut. '_No, that can't be it either, the question specifically states "any quirk", not just specific types'_

He gave a quick glance back towards the doctor, hoping for a hint. The man instead huffed, pulled out his phone and set a timer for 20 seconds.

'_Crap! That just made it worse!' _He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to forget about all the stress that had just been put on him _'Think Izuku, Think! What's the most important type of any quirk? You've been researching quirks for a month now, surely you've read something about this!' _The timer was now making audible ticks as it counted down, signifying that it was almost done. _'Ok, ok, calm down you can do this. Work backwards!' _

13\. 12. 11

'_All Might's quirk is one of the most incredible ones out there, what's the most important part of it? It's power? It's limitations? The way he uses it?' _

10\. 9. 8.

'_Think, damn it think!' _

7\. 6. 5.

'_You've literally have done nothing but look at quirks all your life, why can't you answer the question!?' _

4\. 3. 2.

'_Wait…' _His eyes shot open in as inspiration struck him like a bolt of divine lightning.

'_What if it's not about quirks?' _

The Alarm went off and Ujiko sighed.

"Time's u-"

"**I'VE GOT IT!" **

…

"E-er, t-the answer I mean" Izuku clarified "I-I have an answer"

"Uh, well what is it?" The scientist asked, a bit off put on how the previously quiet boy had suddenly gotten very loud very fast.

"The most important part of a quirk… Isn't the quirk at all!" A smile spread across his face as everything started clicking together in his head "It's the Pastry!"

Ujiko blinked as Izuku continued.

"Quirks are like a microwave, and the person is like a pastry!"

The two scientists on break weren't the only thing he saw when he was looking around the breakroom, no, off in the corner was a microwave heating up some pastries. And _that _was cause for his sudden inspiration.

"Microwaves heat up a pastry, just like how quirks power up people" Izuku, not realizing how odd his analogy sounded (as per usual), was at this point, making hand gestures to help 'visualize' it

"If it works out well, you get a heated pastry, just like how heros get an awesome power! But if the pastry can't handle the heat, it blows up! And you can't have a person blow up because of their quirk, so the most important part to any quirk is the pastry!"

Ujiko, seeing what Izuku was getting at (kinda), grinned and started to say something.

"Because it's actually a _super pastry!_"

Only to be interrupted by Izuku's rambling.

"Think about it. The microwave makes pastries better by heating them up, but in order to handle that, they already have to be super!

"Like the pro hero Edge Shot, his reaction time is unparalleled in the world of heroes, but his quirk has _nothing _to do with that! Or heroes in general, they're thrown through walls and hit with tons of blunt force almost everyday, but if you look at medical textbooks that sort of force should kill people almost instantly, but heroes can get up without anything worse than a few bruises!

"Even heroes without fire quirks for heat resistance have taken blasts of fire that should have roasted them alive, and while they were hurt, that's still a far cry from being dead!" He paused for a deep breath "So, the most important part to any quirk, is that just by having one they automatically boost a person's natural limits"

Izuku looked, with a confident grin covering his face, to Dr Ujiko whose face was about as blank as they came. The construction seemed muted, scientists weren't running through the halls, everything was silent.

Then Dr Ujiko started to chuckle. Then he started to laugh.

"Pffrhaha"

"Uh?"

"Hoohahoohoohahaha"

"S-Sir?"

"P-Pasties!? Bwahahoohahahooahha"

"You know" The doctor said through the glove he now had covering his mouth "That -Hehaha- That wasn't what I was going for at all!"

Izuku's stomach twisted. Had… Had he really gotten it so wrong to be laughed at?

"I was -Haha- I was thinking of the built in mental barriers. What's the point of having a fire quirk if you _*Snicker* _if you fry yourself by burning hotter than your quirk's heat resistance goes?"

"S-So I… I-I was wrong?"

"From the rules I set, yes"

Izuku suddenly felt like he had swallowed a lead brick.

His head fell.

"But that's the thing, your answer was so much better!"

Only to shoot back up in surprise.

"It's a proven, if obscure, fact that humanity's newest stage in evolution has given us much more than flashy powers" Ujiko stated "In order for people to use these powers, human bodies have to be able to adapt to the extreme forces they create. This adaptability works in conjunction with mental barriers to keep people with strength quirks from blasting their own arm off every time they throw a punch. However! Very few people actually realize the extent of humanity's new adaptability. Get punched enough and you'll adapt to become more durable, get burnt enough and you'll adapt to have basic heat resistance. People go to the gym quite often these days, but they don't realize their true potential.

"They stop lifting weights when they feel 'fatigued', but if they instead keep going, keep pushing until their muscles are ripping themselves from the bone, and then do it again every week, the body will be forced to adapt to the training just like it would be forced to adapt to a strength quirk. Now you'll never get to the level of someone with a strength enhancing quirk just through training, but" He grinned "Several of my experiments have shown just how close you can get!"

"This is why schools like U.A. have so much of their curriculum based around physical fighting" He held up his hand "The entrance exam, hero classes, the sports festival, final exams" He listed off on his fingers "Even the hero licensing test, all of these have students beaten down to become more resilient!"

"So yes, your answer was much better than the one I expected!"

He let out a laugh.

"And your passion" Ujiko's smile slanted at an angle that just seemed _wrong _"It reminded me of myself when I speak of my art! Haha! Talent is a dime a dozen these days, kid. People pop up with some quirk and suddenly they're a prodigy, but It's so rare to find _true _unbridled _Passion_!"

"And _PASSION!_" He shouted as he threw his arms in the air "Is the most important part of art!"

"S-So I d-did it? I-I won?"

"If that's what you want to call getting the question right, then sure!"

Izuku couldn't help the small smile that came to his face. Sure saying "I won" after getting a question right did sound a bit dumb, but now he'd get an answer to _his _question, and that was a victory. A small victory for sure, but when was the last time he really had one of those?

When he was diagnosed quirkless?

When he lost Bakugo as a friend?

When he made his mother cry?

When he met All Might?

'_No' _He answered himself as he wiped away the small amount of tears that were stinging his eyes. Getting his question answered was a very small victory, but after a lifetime of failures, it felt like it was as big as a mountain.

Izuku couldn't help but laugh when he thought about his situation. He had purposely thrown himself into trying to answer his random question of "what is a quirk" as a way to distract himself from his meeting with All Might on the roof, but his horrible way of coping had actually wound up giving him exactly what he needed. A spark of hope.

If he could learn an entire field's worth of material that was way above his head, contact scientists from all over the globe, track down a ghost of a man in the middle of nowhere, all to get some random question answered, and all in a _month_, then what was getting a 70 on the U.A. entrance exam? He didn't have to get the highest score after all, he just had to pass.

It was a small victory, but that was all he needed, small victories, because with enough of them, even small victories could change the world.

"Three days"

Izuku looked up in confusion

"T-Three days?"

"Three days" Ujiko repeated "I want you back here, at 5 PM sharp, in three days"

"B-But why?"

"I don't have to tell you why" He said as he started pushing Izuku to the nearest set of stairs "I'm the genius of the century, you're just some random kid, I don't have to tell you anything"

"B-B-But m-my q-question!"

"You're question is why you're gonna make sure to come back. You don't come back, you don't get an answer. Capiche?"

"B-But you s-sa-"

"I said I'd answer it, I never said _when_ I would" They passed floor 2 and continued upwards "Learn to read the fine print before you go making random deals"

"B-B-B-Bu-"

"Now go home, get some sleep, etcetera etcetera, I don't care, just be back here in three days" He pushed Izuku through a set of double doors, into a hallway filled with boxes, and pointed down the hallway to a large steel door. The same door Izuku first knocked on.

"And stop stuttering!" He yelled as he gave the boy a small shove to get him moving "It's annoying!"

-Rain of Sins-

Ujiko stood in front of several large monitors, and watched the green haired boy walk off into the night, the freshly installed cameras finally doing what they should have been doing for over a week now.

The stakes of that question had been riding a lot higher than he had let on. After all, he never said what would happen if the kid answered wrong.

He had _expected _the kid to get it wrong.

But the kid hadn't, instead he had over performed to the extreme.

"Super Pastries" He chuckled to himself.

'_I was the one to prove how humanity's new adaptability was crucial in the use of quirks, and I was also the one who later proved just how much potential humanities new adaptability had… although I had lost all my credibility at that time so no one really took me seriously' _He frowned in thought, that period of time had been an especially low point in his life, if his master hadn't found him when he did…

'_But much more pressingly, that second bit of research was all erased when Master erased my presence from the world. He couldn't have found anything on it online, he had to have come to that conclusion by himself. But I spent years on that theory, and I was one of the most capable scientists in the world at the time, so for a kid to catch onto it, even if was only the basics…'_

"He's definitely someone to keep an eye on"

"Sir, what should we do?"

"Hmmm?" The mad scientist sent a lazy glance over his shoulder at the new head security officer behind him. He had fired the old one back when he was in the breakroom (what idiot lets a secret lab get snuck up on, by a _middle schooler_ of all people).

"Focus on getting up the security system completely set up, but other than that nothing for now"

"What about the intruder?"

"The kid? What about him?"

"Sir, he found the lab, are you really just going to let him go?"

"I hardly think putting three different trackers on the boy, each with a microphone to let us listen in, and having several teams ready to be deployed to take him down at any time, can be considered 'letting him go'"

"But what if he was working with the police, or a villain group? Shouldn't we have killed him?"

"Your thinking too short term" Ujiko responded flatly as he brought up a new screen, this one a map of the city with three dots on it, one for each tracker put on the boy.

"If he _was_ working for someone, and we killed him, it wouldn't solve the problem. They would still know where the lab is, and even worse, they would have known it was one of mine just by the question they had the kid ask. 'D-Does D-Dr Ujiko w-work here?'" He mocked the kid's stutter

"Killing him was a no-go, capturing and interrogating him for information wouldn't have been any good either. He was sent out alone, that means he's expendable, and expendable people aren't kept in the loop. Therefore the only logical move was to let him go and watch his moves. Sending a team to shadow him is too noticeable a move, and would raise immediate suspicion, so by process of elimination putting trackers on him was the only viable option"

"But what if he disposes of them somehow?"

"Pshhh" The doctor waved his hand in a dismissive gesture "I put one on his jacket, one on his shirt, and one in his hair, they're microscopic and are sticky as hell, I should know I helped make them. The only way he gets them off is by washing them off with hot water. And the only place he's likely to take any sort of shower or wash his clothes is at home, where the trackers will helpfully show us the location of"

"And if he doesn't come back in three days, or leads us to a hideout?"

"If he doesn't come back, then we send in a team and kill him. If he leads us to a hideout then we send in a team, shoot the place up, and then kill him. Easy as cake. The only loss for us would be having to relocate the lab"

Which would put him even further behind schedule… again.

But that was for later, right now he had given himself three days to gather information and see what was up.

'_Great, now I gotta go get a bunch of info diggers to get ahold of the kid's records, see if he's working for anyone. Then I need to get some for of surveillance system set up outside wherever he leads us to' _

He sighed. The kid had potential, but the whole damn thing just screamed of a set up. He hoped the kid's story held up, that he was just some random teenager who wanted his question answered (and even _that_ was fishy as hell), it would save him so much work.

But if life had taught him anything, the odds of something actually causing him to have _less_ work…

'_I'm not getting any sleep tonight, am I?'_

-Chapter End-

**Ok so apparently "Hot Chocolate" is one of those things that has different names depending on where you are in the world. So if you've been confused as to what I've been drinking while I write, then you might know it as… **

***Squints at wiki article***

**Cocoa, Drinking Chocolate, or as Chocolate Tea.**

**And if you still don't know what it is th****en "It is a Hot comfort drink that tends to be thick and rich, usually made by mixing chocolate or cocoa powder and sugar with warm milk. Hot chocolate is usually drunk to make the drinker feel happier or warmer. Some studies have shown that hot chocolate may be healthy because of antioxidants that are in cocoa."**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Or that's what wikipedia says at least.**

**Speaking of people from around the world, FF.N has informed me that there's someone from Guam who reads this story. I don't know **_**why**_** it decides this info is necessary, or even why it collects it, but it likes to show it to me for some reason. (I actually think it's a bit creepy) Hot tip, turn off location junk when using their app, and use a vpn (Or even better use Tor) while on computer, because FF.N apparently tracks your location… how fun.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**So shout out to my friend in Guam.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**About that point good ol' deku makes about "Super pastries" (and the good doctor's subsequent explanation), that was basically the only way I can think to explain the BS abilities we see in the show. Stain bounces off walls, practically teleport from how fast he goes, and can slice through giant glaciers speeding at him with nothing but a chipped busted up steel sword.**

"**Ok so his quirk is strength based right?" **

**Nope, it's blood paralyzing.**

**And don't even get me started on how Toga "disguises her presence" in a brightly lit arena, where her costume's black and gold colors stick out like a sore thumb among the myriad of bright brown, with only rocks to act as cover.**

**So yea. BS abilities.**

**(By this logic canon still works, Izuku doesn't "adapt" to not break his arm because he was born quirkless, behind the evolutionary curve, and thus without the adaptability that comes from the evolutionary leap) **

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**The OC from last chapter (And literally any OC I ever add) is **_**not**_** going to play a huge part in the book. (Think of Dave and Bob in chapter 2 for examples)**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**And one last thing. **

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**This story's format is like a roller coaster.**

**It takes a bit of time to chug up the ramp, going all slow and steady, but once you hit the top, BOOM! Your off on the ride of a lifetime.**

**The first bit of chapters are all about setting up the dominoes, making a nice solid foundation for the story to stand on, but once that's all set up and we hit U.A. (Even just the entrance exam) oh boy. It's all downhill from there (in a good way). **

**No more slow chug upwards, I'm talking about some zigs, some zags, some zigzags, some nosedives, some loopty-loops, and at one point or another it's just gonna go into free fall 'cuz it broke off the rails and went off a cliff. (again, in a good way)**

**But if you don't like roller coasters, or that analogy just sucked in general, all you need to know is…**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Right now were in the slow setup mode, but hold in there, because in just a bit things are gonna start exploding.**

… **But In a good way**

… **Why do all the fun expressions have negative connotations?**

**Next Chapter: December 7th(ish)**

**(Note: Will most certainly be very off date due to finals)**


	5. Down the Rabbit Hole ch 4 (end)

***Takes long Sip of Hot Chocolate***

**10k words! WOO! Let's go!**

**Sorry for the wait, long chapter is long, and finals suck**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**The first real arc is winding down, and all the pieces are starting to fall into place**

**Things are looking good so far (Or bad, it really depends on how you look at it)**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**And I got a hate review on Izuku's stutter **

**(It wasn't **_**really **_**a hate review, more just "constructive criticism" without the "constructive" part, but "get a hate review" is one of the things I've been wanting to check off on the goal wall for a while now. And****people are a lot less-douchey on this side of the internet than I expected. I mean come on, three **_**thousand **_**views on the first chapter and not a single angry rant about how "I should die in a hole and then die again for existing!"? Makes writing this more enjoyable, but made checking off that goal obnoxiously hard)**

**But back to the stutter, the only reason I'm even acknowledging this comment is for all of y'all who don't like stuttery MCs (Heaven knows I don't) but have stuck with the story anyway (bless your souls)**

**Right now the story has "cannon" Izuku, so I have to write "cannon" Izuku, **_**but**_** once things start moving Izuku will have ~Character Development~**

**And I have gone out of my way to make sure that he loses the damn stutter **

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**And it's not even the stutter that annoys me, it's literally just- Ugh!**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Izuku's character has every reason to stutter at first, he's bullied, he's put down, he has no self worth, but he has so much **_**potential**_**.**

**He's **_**heroic, **_**he's **_**brave,**_** he's **_**compassionate,**_** and as he grows as a character he grows into these traits, each one acting as a cornerstone for the amazing character he can become.**

**But when people write these wonderful stories where he grows and becomes this awesome hero that's strong and caring and helps people, and finds self worth, but then they have him keep the **_**damn stutter?**_

**I don't- It's just- I can't- Ugh!**

***Angrily Sips Hot Chocolate***

**It's such a good character development tool, a perfect way to show how he grows, and they just leave it!**

**As a writer, it makes me upset. As a fan of several fics who can imagine what they **_**could **_**be, it makes me cry.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**And I would have had this out a few hours ago but I spent an hour watching a video on youtube titled "Patrick on a seahorse listening to fly me to the moon for 1 hour"**

***Takes Contented Sip of Hot Chocolate***

**Best hour of my life.**

-Rain of Sins-

-Down the Rabbit Hole: Chapter 4-

There have been multiple times in Izuku's life when he could just _tell _that he was screwed, it wasn't always about something he could see either, such as just before the slime villain popped out of the sewers. It was something he felt in his bones.

"Izuku Midoriya" Inko Midoriya stood in the living room dressed in her pajamas, tapping her foot impatiently "Where have you been"

This was one of those times.

"Don't just stand there, say something!"

"M-Mom I-"

"Do you have any idea how worried I was?!"

"I-"

"YOU DON'T!"

Her angry facade had barely lasted twenty seconds before her worry started to crack it from the inside out.

"I woke up to get a glass of water, only to find you gone" She stepped forward into the lamplight to reveal a face stained with tears and eyes that were red from hours of crying "At _MIDNIGHT_ Izuku! I didn't know if you had been kidnapped or-or-or-or something worse! All I could do was sit and pray and think, an- and all I could do was sit there w-when I realized th-that y-you..."

"M-Mom I-I'm s-sorry I-"

Any further thought process on the situation was cut off when his mother smothered him in one her patented Mom hugs, and started sobbing into his shoulder.

The living room was dark, only a single small lamp and the light of the moon providing any light. The sobs of a scarred mother accompanied only by the light pitter-patter of newly started rain. A glass of wine laid half empty on the table.

"I-I was so scared th-that y-you were g-gone for g-good Izuku" She managed to get out through her sobs "Y-you're all I have l-left, a-and I thou- I thought I- that you had…" Failing to find the mental fortitude to finish her statement, Izuku's mother settled for squeezing him tighter instead, seemingly desperate to make sure he was really there.

She had been drinking to try to wash away her worry.

They stood like that for a while, with Izuku comforting his mother as she cried into his shoulder, listening to the occasional rumble of far off thunder.

Izuku could only smile sadly, he felt… well to put it bluntly, he felt like absolute garbage, making his mother worry so badly. It wasn't that he regretted his decision to go to the lab, he didn't regret that decision, he was going to go back in three days after all. Instead all of his guilt was due to how he worried his mother so much in the process. He should have waited until morning like he was originally going to, that way his mother wouldn't have been put in such a nerve racking situation.

It was as they say "Hindsight is 20/20", but hindsight wasn't helping him in this situation. What he needed to do was simply hug his mom and comfort her, soon she would get it out of her system, take a step back, wipe her face clean with her sleeve, and start scolding him. It was how it always went he did something that worried her. She would cry her eyes out, then scold him unti-

"I'm sorry"

'_What?'_

"I'm so sorry"

It was such a quiet thing, it could barely be counted a whisper, for a moment the teen thought he had imagined it.

"I _hic_ I don't know w-what I did, but _sniff _I'm so so s-sorry Izuku"

"M-Mom?"

This wasn't how it was supposed to go. His mom was supposed to get angry with him, not… whatever this was.

"I-It's because I didn't s-support you isn't it?" She sobbed "It's b-because I didn't _sniff _because I didn't s-support you t-trying b-becoming a hero, I-I just didn't w-want you to get h-hurt, th-that's all"

Izuku had no idea what was going on, let alone what he was supposed to say.

"I-I'm s-sorry, I'll _hic _I'll support you, I-I'll cheer you on no matter what you d-do, I'll d-do whatever I can to h-help you b-become a hero, j-just please" She squeezed him even tighter as she broke down "P-please don't leave me again!"

Oh.

The realization hit him like a bombshell.

His mom thought he ran away from home.

It was why she had been drinking and crying her eyes out, instead of calling the police.

"Mom…" There were so many things he wanted to say. That he didn't run away, that he would never leave her like that, that she was an amazing mom, that he loved her. But Izuku was never good with words, and couldn't seem to find a good way to fit it all in, so instead he did the next best thing.

He hugged her, and let her cry on his shoulder.

All while the rain continued to fall outside.

-Rain of Sins-

…

…

…

"Hmmmmmm"

Ujiko was annoyed.

He wasn't mad, he wasn't angry, he wasn't about to go punch something, he was just… annoyed.

It had been three days since the kid had come to the lab, it had been three days since he had people start digging for info on the kid, three days of consecutive all nighters and lost sleep, and it had been three days of _nothing!_

'_Well… it's not exactly nothing'_ He mused as he glanced at the large stacks of paper sprawled out in front of him.

Date of birth, blood type, medical records, school grades, home address, family tree, and much more was right there, presented to him in a nice size 11 calibre font, but it was just… so… nothing!

No criminal record, no instances of delinquency, no instances of him acting out in class, no extracurricular activities, he wasn't apart of any gangs, he didn't attend any political rallies, he had no romantic relationships, it was just so…

Plain!

He was so unsuspicious, that it was suspicious!

The kid didn't even attend any after school clubs! In fact, the only thing that even made the kid stand out was the fact that he was quirkless. He was quirkless, but was somehow still determined to be a hero despite all the bullying he went through because of it. He had even put U.A. on his highschool paper!

The kid's father died when he was young, and he lived alone in an apartment with his mother who worked multiple jobs to support the both of them. No family pets, no grandparents, no cousins, no extended family of any note, and when Ujiko had listened into the recordings from the tracking chips, all he got was a bunch of crying.

He was honestly beginning to wonder how he had thought the kid was a threat in the first place. He wasn't threatening at all, just… sad and depressing to look at.

And it wasn't sad as in the feeling you get when you hear some random person died on the car radio, but sad as in the feeling you get when you see an orphan on the street… who was starving… but with no arms… or legs.

But that wasn't the point!

The most threatening part about the kid was the fact he could make you depressed just by telling you his life's story. Which kinda played into his favor, Ujiko _really _didn't feel like killing the kid. It would just be wrong… like kicking a puppy… that was drowning… and didn't have legs.

… He really needed better analogies.

But that brought him to his current situation. Sitting at his desk with what Yuyara had dubbed "The great tower of coffee" sitting to his right (a stack of well over 20 empty coffee mugs stacked neatly in a tower), staring at, and rereading, the monstrous amount of papers in front of him

The biggest problem the kid provided was the fact he could reveal the lab's location. The usual way this type of problem was handled was with a specially designed memory erasing nomu, it worked like a charm, but the person it was used on, well the side effects were… their mental state was often… Well… He couldn't use it on the kid.

Plan B was just kill whoever it was. It raised police activity, forced the lab crew to lay low until it all blew over, and overall wasn't as good as plan A. Again, he didn't feel like killing the kid.

Plan C was the back up's back up plan. Good ol' Blackmail. It wasn't nearly as good as plan A or B because it didn't actually fix the fact whoever it was could tell someone, it only lessened the risk. Unfortunately, it was Ujiko's only option left unless he wanted to hurt the kid, which as previously stated, was like kicking a puppy.

Unfortunately the things that made the kid so sad and depressing in the first place, also meant there was almost nothing to use as blackmail against him.

No crimes, no debts, no skeletons in the closet, no nothing.

'_What about money?' _He wondered _'Everyone loves money, the kid could use it to pay bills, get an actual house, buy healthier food, all sorts of things. That would work right?' _He stroked his mustache for what seemed to be the hundredth time, it helped him think _'No, that wouldn't work either. A family suddenly gaining a massive income of money would draw attention, not to mention the fact that I'd have to-'_

"Sir"

"Eh?" Ujiko was pulled from his musing by the lab's head scientist, who was lazily leaning on the door frame.

"You told the guards, to tell the security chief, to tell me, to tell you, when the green bean gets here."

"...Green bean?"

Yuyara sighed in exasperation "The kid, boss. You wanted to know when the kid got here"

"And?"

"And? What do you mean, and?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean?"

"Ugh" She grumbled something about 'old people' under her breath "The kid, boss. The kid is here"

Ujiko stared at her for a moment, his coffee fueled brain running overtime trying to understand what she said, before his eyes widened in surprise. He knew he needed to work fast, but had time really gotten away from him that badly? He scrambled to gather all of his stuff while glancing at his watch, and sure enough h- wait a moment.

"Yuyara what are you talking about? The kid can't be here yet"

"What do mean he can't be here yet? Are you going senile or something?"

"I told him to be here at 5pm sharp, I still have half an hour"

"Half a- what in the world are you going on about?"

"The clock Yuyara" He held up his watch "It's only 4:30"

"Well what you want me to do, wave my hand and magically speed the clock forward half an hour? That's not how my quirk works, that's not how _any _quirk works!"

"No, I'm saying that no sane person would actively _want_ to come to an underground lab disguised as a creepy old warehouse" He spoke as he turned his attention back to his papers "Let alone come a whole half hour before they're supposed to be there"

"Well then congratulations, the kid's not sane"

"Wait" He glanced back up at her "He's actually here?"

"YES!" Yuyara practically shouted "The kid is here, why is that so hard to understand?"

"Well then why didn't you say something sooner?!"

Ujiko thought he heard Yuyara swear something about "Goddamn old people" but quickly discarded it as his sleep deprived mind playing tricks on him. He grabbed a handful of documents and his coffee mug, before he paused, realized it was empty, and put it back down.

"Grab the rest" He told Yuyara as he ran past her.

…

Yuyara blinked and looked at the desk that was covered in various stacks of paper as big as her head.

She leaned her head back against the door frame, and let out a resigned sigh.

"Guards!"

A few seconds later a pair of armed guards sprinted around the corner, guns raised and ready to fight off any threat.

"Hey guys" Yuyara smiled "The Doc needs all that junk taken to the front" She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder.

"But miss-"

"Thanks so much guys" She gave a lazy wave as she walked away "Y'all are a huge help"

-Rain of Sins-

It had been an… interesting past few days for Izuku. After he had gotten home had that whole fiasco with his mom, she had passed out on his shoulder after 30 or so minutes crying on his shoulder. He had then taken her to her room and tucked her into her bed, before going to his room and falling asleep.

He had honestly expected to wake up and it all have been some weird dream, Mr Kurogiri, the lab, Dr Ujiko, his mom, all of it. But when he woke up he was still wearing his jacket, still had the crumpled paper in his pocket and him mom… he had brought it up twice, once the morning after, and once yesterday. The first time, she broke down sobbing, and the second (when he tried much more gently) she had immediately shushed him and told him not to worry about it.

But while this was important, he had bigger things to worry about right now, mainly the large metal door in front of him. His mother had told him at a young age that he should always be a bit early to important things.

'_Although I don't think she meant this early' _He admitted to himself as he glanced at his phone, which was proudly displaying the fact he wasn't supposed to be here for another half an hour.

'_M-Maybe I should just go home, go home and then come back at five'_ He took a step back_ 'No!' _Only to stop _'All Mig -err- a true hero wouldn't get scarred and run away just because they were a bit early' _He took a step forwards _'But they wouldn't _be_ half an hour early to begin with' _He took a step back.

And so this continued for a few minutes before the quirkless boy finally worked up the nerve to knock on the door. This was not because he had found the courage to face social interaction, but instead because he had found the perfect way to sidestep the entire social problem entirely.

'_I'll knock on the door, and if no one answers I'll just come back later'_

Truly it was a genius plan, it allowed him to not have to worry about social interaction at all… unless of course.

'_I can do this'_

Someone actually opened the door, because then the whole plan went out the window.

Just as Izuku raised a shaking fist, the door swung open inward.

Standing in the doorway was a young woman in her early twenties, she had light mint green hair that fell down to her lower back, toxic green eyes, and a smirk plastered on her face. She wore a lab coat, custom tailored to be longer than usual, hanging down to her ankles, blue jeans, black shoes, and a light blue armband, signifying her as a person of authority.

"Well lookie here, it's the green bean everyone's been talking about"

"I-I-I w-wa, I-I" Izuku stuttered like a broken record, the situation having him frozen in place. His anxiety wasn't helped when the woman started to snicker at his attempts at communication.

"Sheesh kid, your shaking worse than a leaf, you catch a cold or somethin?"

"N-No I-I'm not s-sick"

"Relax kid" She waved her hand in a dismissive motion "I'm messing with ya, it's called sarcasm, you should try it sometime"

"O-Oh, w-well sorry"

"Sorry?" She raised an eyebrow in curiosity, before shrugging and stepping aside "Whatever, the boss wants to see you, whether that's a good or bad thing is still up for debate"

"B-B-B-Bad th-thing!?" Izuku recoiled

She sighed and brought her palm to her face "Sarcasm kid" She gave him a blank stare though her fingers "Sarcasm"

"O-Oh" Izuku relaxed slightly "R-Right, sarcasm"

He gulped as he took a few hesitant steps past the lab head and into the building. He gulped again as he noticed the four armed guards on either side of the door, and gulped a third time when the lady closed the door behind him, locking it with an audible click.

"Hope you don't mind me being the one to greet ya" She said as she started walking him deeper into the facility "The boss man is busy and I figured you wouldn't want a group of guards showing you in" She glanced over her shoulder at the squad of guards following them and winced "Err- you would want someone _other_ than just a group of guards showing you in"

"R-Right" Izuku stammered.

The two descended into an awkward silence, mainly do to Izuku's lack of communication skills performing a team up move with his nervousness around the female gender, to render him incapable of speech.

"Sooooo" The lady drawled in an attempt to break the silence "What's your name?"

"I-Izuku M-Midoriya" He stuttered "W-W-What's yours"

"You want to know my name" She gasped as she pulled her arms protectively in front of her chest "How bold!"

Much more distressing to Izuku was that this had the "unfortunate" side effect of exemplifying her 'feminine assets'

"S-S-S-SORRY!"

She went from "shocked" to trying to hold in her laughter as Izuku found a sudden interest in the floor, and turned red as a cherry in record breaking time

"I'm just messing with you kid" She chuckled at him "The name's Yuyara Ito, and you better remember it!" She smirked.

"And speaking of things to remember, here we are!" Yuyara exclaimed, bringing their march through the stale white hallways to a close.

Drawing his attention back in front of him, Izuku couldn't help but gulp nervously.

In front of Izuku stood a very intimidating door.

It towered over them… by a foot at most.

It was a very vile shade of… steel gray.

It moved by itself… upward because it was an automatic sliding door.

It- ok look just because it looked literally just like every other door in the building doesn't mean it couldn't be intimidating!

… just ignore the fact that _everything _was intimidating to him right about now.

'_T-They're leading me to whatever's behind this door' _He stressed _'Is it Dr Ujiko? Is he angry at me? Am I in trouble? Did I-'_

Oblivious to Izuku's inner turmoil, Yuyara gave a quick flick of her ID across a panel to the door's left, breaking Izuku out of his thoughts with a hydraulic hiss as it slid upward.

Izuku gulped as he nervously looked inside.

It was a moderately sized room, only about a hundred or so square feet, completely empty except for a desk and its accompanying chair in the center. But it being so empty also had the side effect of making the room seem much larger than it was… or maybe that was just Izuku being Izuku.

"What are you waiting for? The mailman? A hot date? A good luck card? Go on in"

"O-Oh sorry!"

The green haired boy nervously glanced around as he entered the room but he couldn't see anything else of note. _'She said to go in, but is this the right room? Am I supposed to meet someone? Am I supposed to be waiting for something? Is there something tha-'_

**Fwump**

If you asked Izuku later, he would tell you that he most certainly did not jump and yelp like a girl when the door closed behind him, no matter what story (read as gossip) Yuyara told in the break room.

Face burning red from embarrassment, Izuku smoothed out his shirt from the jump that he most certainly did not take, and walked towards the desk. As he got closer he noticed that the desk had a large drawer built into it and that, more importantly, it was open by a few inches. Being the very responsible teen he was, Izuku did what any responsible person would do.

Stand next to the desk for a few awkward seconds before giving in, and taking a peek inside.

Inside, in organised lines, were three pens, three pencils, three mechanical pencils, a small stack of notebook paper, and a thick stack of neatly printed paper with a sticky note labeled "For Mr Midoriya"

Pulling the stack out for a closer look, Izuku was surprised to find it was some kind of written test.

His brows furrowed as he flipped through the stack, if it wasn't already obvious, then this proved that this wasn't anything like the tests he took regularly in school. It had well over 300 questions, most of which were free response, and was clearly divided into different sections, each covering a different subject. There was Biology, Genetics, Quirkology, an entire part dedicated to human anatomy, and Chemistry. Izuku winced as he read that last one, he hadn't studied for any form of test, but do to his research he was reasonably confident in his knowledge on the other sections. And since that research hadn't involved anything even remotely related to chemistry…

When he got to the back however, his frown faded. An almost completely empty page greeted him, with ten blank pages for work following it. On the page there were two things, an open ended question was at the top, and right next to it in cursive handwriting.

_Go nuts kid, we're scientists, we understand a lot more than your middle school teacher_

_-Dr. Ujiko_

Izuku couldn't help but smile at the jab at his biology teacher.

'_I must have rambled about it last time I was here'_ He reasoned as he flipped back to the front of the papers. Taking a moment to collect himself and take a deep breath before beginning to work. And as he started on the first question, he was muling over the final open ended question in the back of him mind.

**Q. What do **_**you **_**think a quirk is?**

-Rain of Sins-

Doctor Ujiko sat comfortably in his chair located in the center of the (temporarily re-purposed) surveillance room.

While the monitor filled room was normally staffed by a team of 15 or so guards, with all the screens displaying camera feeds, local hero activity, police patrols, and such. Today, it was full of almost 20 or so of his top scientists, and the screens were displaying fast moving data instead of reports or camera feeds… well, all except for one.

The giant screen that took up the entirety of the northern wall was displaying a live feed of a person of very high interest.

Izuku Midoriya

"Yuyara…" he started without looking up "Why were you at the entrance with the guard team?"

"Meh, no real reason" She shrugged while walking through the door "I just wanted to see the kid myself, find out what everyone's been talking about"

"What do you mean?"

"Boss, you're kidding right?" She stared at him "How have you _not _heard any of the stuff people are saying? It's like" She gestured weakly "The only thing anyone's been talking about for the last few days!

"I swear, I can't even wash my hands without someone asking me 'Is it true a kid got in?' or 'Why'd they let him leave?' or even, and your gonna love this one boss, they asked if the kid was yours!"

"...Seriously?"

"Yes seriously" The lab head huffed as she slumped into the chair next to him "It's like they expect me to know everything that happens here just because I'm the lab head!"

"Yuyara" He gave a sideways glance at her "I put you in charge of both this facility _and _the research conducted here, the security chief reports to you, the research teams report to you, you have access to the entire building's surveillance system- Which I know you watch in your free time for gossip!" He quickly stated, cutting off her rebuttal "And the only person of higher authority in the building is me whenever I stop by. For all intents and purposes, you _do _know everything that happens."

"But boss-"

"Now be quiet, I'm busy" He turned his attention back to the screens in front of him, ignoring how one of the top minds he currently had employed, crossed her arms, huffed, and pouted like a teenager.

The test he had given the kid was difficult, so difficult that it straddled the line between "stress hair graying" and "actually impossible" as if it were walking a tightrope. He should know, he had made it himself, it was made to be hard enough that it made someone's brain work overtime, but not hard enough to make them completely give up, and it was made that way for a very specific reason.

It created the prime environment to monitor someone's brain activity.

But Ujiko would be a fool if he _just_ used this opportunity to monitor that.

Brainwave activity, heart rate, facial expressions, body language and even things as simple as which hand he wrote with. Everything was recorded, analyzed, and cataloged.

And the test itself was just another way to gather info, the most obvious of which was the entire front page, which was a survey page. It asked for mundane things such as your full name, initials, and age. As well as very specific things, such as levels of education, jobs worked, social status, medical issues, past crimes, enemies, etc. These questions weren't much themselves, but with his brain activity monitored, not to mention the plethora of nomu in the room adjacent to him, all with specialized purposes such as being a perfect "Lie detector", the real gems would come from what he either lied about, or didn't feel like answering.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg, it went all the way down to the writing utensil the kid picked and how he used it. A recent survey showed kids that most children in japan used mechanical pencils, however when you broke that up into school regions, the high end private school had the highest use of pens (usually custom made), the middle class public schools tended to use mechanical pencils the most, and the poor schools in the run down parts of cities used almost exclusively wooden pencils the schools provided. He would subconsciously gravitate to which ever felt more familiar to him, and _how _he wrote was just as important as what he wrote with. For example, high class children were taught to hold pens a certain way, and were schooled on their handwriting.

Everyone can lie about where they're from, but the things your thought as a child are ingrained into your subconscious are much harder to cover up. Professional agents have to go through years of training to achieve their expertise, years of training that the kid most certainly doesn't have.

One way or another, Ujiko would have all the information he needed to decide on what to do with the kid.

All they had to do now was wait

-Rain of Sins-

'_Can I just hand this whole thing off to my secretary? No, I don't have one. How about whoever's second in command of the labs, would that work? Wait, that would be Yuyara, and as such, an all around bad idea. She'd just do something stupid to annoy me, like dress him up as a maid and hire him to hand her things, so she doesn't have to get out of her chair'_

Ujiko sighed as he took another sip of coffee, trying to kickstart his brain.

The kid had finished the test about half an hour ago, and even though the test was a sham and there was no real reason to grade it, Ujiko had handed it off to a few of his scientists to do so anyways. (He was curious ok?)

He had honestly expected for something to slip, for one of the brain activity monitors to show the kid had been lying, or for the DNA test they ran on the strand of the kid's hair to show he was related to someone of note, something that let him get rid of the kid with a clear conscience, because he _did_ have a conscience. He was a scientist not a killer, and while his master was the latter on occasions and Ujiko's morals had slipped a bit over time, the doctor had sworn to follow him as a man of science, not a man who killed innocent children.

All for One was the one responsible for the bodies and other less savory paints he used to create his artwork, all Ujiko did was provide his finished creations to his master. His conscience started and ended with his work, where and how his master got him his supplies or what he decided to use the finished product for wasn't on Ujiko's conscience.

But the kid's life _was._

And despite his numerous attempts to get it off, he couldn't.

Here was a kid who had been put down his entire life for something he believed in, but despite this he continued to believe in it… even when no one believed in him_._

… and that hit a little too close to home.

The doctor was currently leaning against the wall of the break room (he was still peeved about how they spent the time to put a TV up before they finished the security system) and watched the interaction between his most annoying lab head and his most annoying headache.

After the kid finished the test, Yuyara dragged him to the break room, hellbent on interrogating the kid for gossip and the such, and Ujiko had been compelled to tag along. _Stupid morals_

And of course, his life being his life, almost immediately after the two sat down, their conversation had drifted to things that made the kid such a hard spot to wipe off his conscience in the first place.

"I-I know that it may seem impossible, and I know it'll be extremely difficult, but…" Izuku looked the lab head straight in the eye "I refuse to give up!"

"Look, Green, that's admirable and all" Yuyara consoled "But you have no idea if it's even feasible, couldn't you at least take the time to make a backup plan for if that falls through?"

Ujiko, deciding to give his mind a break from his moral dilemma, pulled his head up and looked at both of them.

Yuyara was on the edge of the couch, her head rested on her fist which was supported by her arm which in turn rested on the armrest, she was smiling but her hand was rubbing the bottom of her lab coat (an unconscious action which he had learnt meant she was nervous), and judging by her tone of voice…

'_Sympathetic, Caring, and Worried' _He concluded with a slight hum '_The kid's growing on her, although from both of their profiles, it's not too surprising. He's shy, but naturally draws people to him, and Yuyara…' _His mouth thinned to a line _'He's reminding her of her little brother'_

Ujiko filed that away for later, and turned to Izuku.

The aspiring hero was sitting perfectly straight in a chair directly across from the couch, his hands here gripping his knees, and his eyes…

'_Determination' _Ujiko sighed as he closed his eyes _'The kid's got nothing but determination, this argument isn't ending until Yuyara gives up'_

"I understand what your saying, and I know you only mean good, but I can't do that"

"But why not?" The lab head pleaded "I'm not saying to give up trying to be the first quirkless hero, I'm saying just to have something to fall back on if something happens that you can't control"

"I can't do that"

"But why not?!"

"Because" He gripped his jeans "If I do that then I'd be admitting that there's a chance I might fail, and I don't have that kind of luxury. If I want to succeed then I need to put 100% of myself into trying" His eyes steeled "I can't allow myself any doubt"

Ujiko's attention was drawn to the opening of the door, though the two green haired occupants were to caught up in their argument to notice.

Through the door slipped a scientist carrying a stack of papers, he made his way to Ujiko, the doctor meeting him halfway, and handed over the now graded test. The test, do to not being intended to actually be graded, didn't have a grade on the front or any form of score. What it _did _have however was a top of the line scientists opinion on whether or not the kid got the answer right, giving a quick explanation for why he was wrong or why he wasn't entirely right when they had to. A benefit of this was that it wasn't as black and white as "right" or "wrong", there were several questions that the kid had gotten _mostly _right, but was missing a few details he wouldn't have known unless he decided to major in certain fields.

'_Huh, not half bad, kid' _He mused _'There's a lot less red than I thought there'd be, wonder where he put it all' _He sarcastically joked before wincing as he passed by the physics section _'Ahh, there it is' _

But all joking aside, Ujiko was honestly surprised. He had expected the kid, a _Jr High Student_, to completely bomb it, to have missed questions so wildly that his scientists would laugh at them. Instead, the kid once again went above and beyond. Now it wasn't perfect by any means, not even close, but if the test were scored by normal standards, Ujiko would wager the kid would be passing.

He was impressed.

And that was a difficult feat to accomplish.

Turning to the last page, he stopped dead in his tracks.

He had put "What do you think a quirk is" as a way to make the kid really think, really get his brain working to get good readings, and he _had_ expected the kid to go overboard on the question, but this…

The scientist could only run his fingers over the page in awe, ignoring the rising shouting of Izuku and yuyara, for a brief moment Ujiko had thought his men had gotten a group of _his own_ notes mixed in with the batch.

There was a huge gap in ability between someone who had no experience with a subject when compared to someone who at least had the basic ideas behind it down. When put up against one another the one with the basic understanding would win almost 100% of the time. Now compare that to two people who both knew what they were doing, but one was more experienced than the other by a year or two. The more experienced one would be more likely to win, but there's still a reasonable chance that the underdog could come out on top (there are entire movies based off the fact).

There is this massive jump in ability when you learn the basics of something, but then everything afterwards is incremental. You can become more skilled by going up incrementally then you ever did from your original jump, but you'll never have a comparable jump in ability like that again.

At least most people won't.

There was a second jump that came when you thoroughly _understood _something, not many people were able to reach this depth of understanding, but it's what sets the Albert Einsteins apart from the rest of the pack. And when you reach this level of understanding, you're able to use what you _know _to predict what you _don't. _

To dumb this down, it's like if you wanted to know where a ball came from, normally you would just have to guess, but if you know _how _it got there, if you knew it fell from somewhere, you can make an educated guess instead of a random one, in this case: that the ball came from the roof.

A grin spread across the doctor's face as he read through the paper. The kid didn't know everything, and several of his hypotheses had holes in them, but Ujiko could just _tell_, the kid could make that second jump.

And the proof was the large red question mark the grader had put in the middle of the page.

It was in that moment that Ujiko had a realization, the same realization All for One had with Tomura all those years ago.

'_The kid's rough around the edges' _The doctor conceded_ 'He doesn't have all the education and specialization that I usually look for, but that doesn't matter' _Things were clicking into place in the mad scientist's mind_ 'Those can be provided in time, no, the kid has something much more valuable' _His smile warped and his eyes darkened _'He has the potential to be more than anyone else could ever be, and even better-'_

"**It doesn't matter how many times I get knocked down! I'll always, **_**always**_** get up and try again!**"

Izuku's emotional outburst deafened the room, his argument with Yuyara reaching it's explosive conclusion

'_He has __**passion!**_'

A chuckle cut through the silence like a metaphorical pen drop.

"Pfwhooho"

"M-Mr Ujiko?"

"Boss?"

They both looked at him, bewildered.

"HoohaHahahoohahahooahahoahaah!"

"Oh great" Yuyara mumbled "You broke him"

"Bwhoohahahahohahahahohehahohahhahehohahahoohahehehahahooha!"

"M-Mr U-Uji-"

"_**YES!**_"

"Wh-wh-wh-wha?" Izuku recoiled

"Yes!" The mad scientist declared

"That right there!" He pointed at Izuku "That was the _perfect_ answer!"

"I-it was?"

"YES!" The doctor exclaimed as he approached Izuku

"Never, NEVER, give up on your passions!"

"Yes" He looked Izuku directly in the eyes, his grin feral "You have what it takes, you will be my greatest masterpiece! HAHA" He laughed, the shadows highlighting his Cheshire grin in all the wrong ways "You are to be my successor!"

"W-What?!"

"Boss?!"

"Quick!" The mad doctor shouted, ignoring their protests "We haven't a moment to lose! We must start getting you up to task immediately!" He began to run off before slapping his forehead and stopping to pull out his phone "I need to make calls! I need to get my other lab heads here to tutor you!"

"U-Uh excus-"

"No wait! It's much more efficient to learn hands on and through experience- oh but then you wouldn't learn the theoretical side of things in as much detail- oh wait! Yuyara!" He yelled, pointing at the woman who could be confused with an owl, with how wide her eyes were "This lab is the closest to where my successor lives, you are to provide tutelage when I'm not here, and allow him to watch and help with your research department's work." The doctor began to pace back and forth, his mind going a mile an hour

"E-Excuse me?"

"Oh there's so much to do, not to mention the lab isn't even fully set up yet, and that won't do, my successor must have access to the highest end of resources, I'll have to get a construction team out here asap to-"

"EXCUSE ME!"

Ujiko stopped, blinked, and turned to his newly named successor.

"I-I-I-I w-wa-w"

"Spit it out kid!" Ujiko barked, still grinning madly "No successor of mine stutters! It wastes time that would be better spent sharing hypotheses or research"

"D-Dr Ujiko I-I"

"Ah, ah, ah, what did I just say kid?"

"I-" Izuku took a deep breath and steadied himself "What's going on?"

"Well isn't it obvious my boy?" Ujiko grinned "You've impressed me, and I'm making you my successor!"

"B-But sir, I-I can't"

"What?" Ujiko blinked, taking a moment to process what he just heard "WHAT!? Why not?"

"I-I'm honored sir, b-but I can't give up on my dream of U.A. and besides" The boy looked down dejectedly

"_No. You can't be a hero without a quirk"_

"I don't have a quirk" He clenched his fists as All Might's words came back to him "I-I don't have an intelligence quirk, I can't make myself learn things at an accelerated rate, or multiply my IQ by drinking tea. So I'm sorry sir" He closed his eyes as he finally accepted what he'd refused to for so long "But I don't have a quirk" and he never would.

A pregnant pause filled the air, Izuku waiting for Ujiko's reaction with his eyes clenched shut, and Yuyara staring wide eyed at the two, trying to understand what happened in the last 30 seconds.

'_I really am a Deku aren't I?_' Izuku halfheartedly chastised himself _'I know I can't do anything without a quirk, but I'm still going to try for U.A.?' _Izuku felt sad weight settle in his stomach while a much larger one slipped from his shoulders, as he brought himself to accept his situation. He would never truly be anything without a quirk, but at the same time, he _refused_ to give up on his dream. Two unchangeable realities that would forever but heads, and forever hinder him, I mean he was only 16 and look how much their clash had messed up his life so far.

"So I'm sorry sir" He restated and bowed his head "But I'm quirkless" A sad smile graced his face, he wasn't _happy _with his new realization, but finally accepting it brought him a calming sense of peace.

"So?"

Only for Ujiko's reply to shatter said piece

"W-What do you mean?" Izuku frantically questioned

"I mean does that really matter?"

"W-Well of course it matters!"

"_Ha! The quirkless kid wants to be a hero, what a joke!"_

"Everyone is born with a quirk, a power that makes them unique and strong"

"_Listen Nerd, I'm the only one from this school who's hero material, YOU GOT THAT!?"_

"I was born without one, and because of this no one would believe in me"

"_I'm so sorry sweetie"_

"But if everyone else is naturally born with a huge advantage over me, are they _wrong _to not believe in me? Are they _wrong _when they say that I'll never be as strong as someone with a quirk?"

"_No. A quirkless person can't be a hero"_

'_A quirkless person can't be anything' _He finished in his head.

…

"So that's it huh?" Ujiko questioned

Izuku gulped and braced himself

"You can't accept because no one believes in you?"

"Wha- n-no I-"

"Well that's an easy fix" Using the fact Izuku's bow made Ujiko the taller one, he ruffled the kid's hair "I believe in you. See? Easy fix. Now be my successor"

Izuku had only met Dr Ujiko a few days ago, the man was still a relative stranger, so hearing him say that he believed in him shouldn't mess with him so much, but…

"I-I believe in you too Gree-uh-kid-er-boss" Yuyara chimed in, her shot mental capacity going Ujiko=Boss, Green=Ujiko's successor=future boss=need good impression.

"G-Guys" Izuku stuttered, blinking away tears

"And besides" Ujiko continued, his grin still in place "Who cares if you have a quirk? I mean really, quirks are meaningless when talking about potential"

"Wh-what do you mean sir?" Izuku snorted as he wiped his sleeve across his face

"What do I mean? _What do I MEAN!?_ HAHA!" Ujiko threw the stack of papers up in the air, the binding coming undone and causing it to fall like leaves around them.

"You're question my boy!" He exclaimed "What are quirks?"

"Young Mr Midoriya, do you know _why_ it doesn't matter if you have a quirk?"

"It's because quirks don't measure what you can or can't do!"

Izuku felt his chest tighten.

"It's because quirks don't determine your destiny!"

He felt his eyes water.

"It's because what quirk your born with doesn't determine anything!"

He felt his hope, beaten and battered as it was, find a small spark.

"It's because what quirks are, all quirks _truly _are, is _**clay**__!_"

"HAHAHA!" He cackled at the heavens

"Quirks are clay that we scientists must shape to create our art!"

And so began a story that was never meant to be, a fable that would forever leave its mark on history. A tale of pain, struggles, hardship, growth, redemption, and loss.

Say it was fate, say it was luck, say the powers that be had given a hopeless boy the chance he never had, or that it was simply "wrong place wrong time", it doesn't matter how it started, only that it did. And now the world would be forever changed.

… And it wasn't prepared.

-Rain of Sins-

Sir Nighteye's eyes bolted open as he gave out a startled gasp. Taking a moment to compose himself and steady his breathing, he tried to gather his thoughts.

"Sir! Are you alright?"

The pro hero glanced up at Mirio Togata, the hero in training he had agreed to spar with after nearly a week of pestering. "Y-Yes I'm fine, unfortunately I'm going to have to postpone this until tomorrow" He replied, running a hand through his hair as his memory came back to him

"What? But Sir, we haven't even started!"

"Yes, I know, but I just remembered I need to make a call"

"B-But Sir!"

Leaving the boy behind in the training room, Nighteye pushed his way out the door and through the hallway, not stopping until he reached his office. He then promptly locked the door and slumped into his chair.

Miro had been pestering him for a true spar for well over a month now and he had finally relented. He was planning on going all out to show the boy how far he had to go, inspiring his drive to improve while stomping out any overconfidence that might have started forming at the same time.

That had been the plan.

It hadn't lasted very long.

The pro had used Foresight on Mirio the moment the fight began, having patted him on the back right before to meet the requirements, he was going to use it to look into the future for the next hour to predict all the boy's moves.

But he hadn't gotten just the hour glimpse he had been expecting.

The Hero pinched the bridge of his nose as he recalled his vision.

_A stadium made of solid stone melting, grotesque creatures with exposed brains marched alongside fallen angels with faces of skulls, raindrops as thick as sludge and as black as oil rained from the heavens, and in the center of it all stood a man. His arms were spread lazily into the air and his face was turned towards the sky, simply enjoying the moment._

It was clear, too clear. His visions of the far future were always snippets, brief moments in time with a hazy foam surrounding them, but this was different, he had not only received visual feedback, but audio as well…

Nighteye sighed as he fished his phone out of his pocket, he had several calls to make.

And as the phone rang, the words of the man rang in head.

"_Revenge? You could call this revenge, you could also call me a Villain, but this… this is so much _more_. This is __**Justice**__, and I… I am the rain that has come to wash away the sins of the world… even if I must purge it in fire to do so"_

-End Chapter-

-Arc: Down The Rabbit Hole: End-

**Two things**

**1\. Randomly got #Dad!Ujiko vibes when writing that last interaction, and it compelled me to add in a hair ruffle.**

**2\. Finally! I get to write past the "sad Izuku" stage where he's depressed 'cuz of All Might**

**3\. This is more than 2 things**

**4\. At long last, the first arc is over**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**What did y'all think?**

**Good? Bad? Too many sporks? Not enough sporks?**

**Tell me in the reviews, because I read them… a lot… I get bored easily ok?**

**Speaking of reviews I wanna try that one thing all the big authors do, you know the ones that have stories with like 1k favorites or some crazy number like that.**

**They sometimes put a **_**response**_** section, it's so **_**COOL**_** and professional like.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**So yea… I'ma try it!**

_**"Emrys Akayuki**__**: **__**He's gonna find out they're villains when he's in way too deep, I hope he doesn't agree with them, or by that point he's too important to murder / murder his loved ones.**_

_**Or he'll become so sociopathic it doesn't matter that they're villains, he just wants to continue his work, then eventually he gets slapped in the face by the morals he used to have (probably literally, possibly through an innocent child) and snaps out of it and stuff happens."**_

_**This is fun, looking forward to the next chapter!**_

**A) Innocent Children make great plot devices.**

**B) Morals? Psssshhhh, who needs morals? Well I mean… Izuku does, and he has them spades right now, but I don't need morals. Morals are for losers, all I need is Hot Chocolate… and air… and light… and ground to stan- ok nevermind, **_**Next!**_

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

_**"Dreams of NoBody**__**: **__**A roller-coaster sounds fun too bad I've never been in one. T_T**_

_**And holy shit is the doctor paranoid, along with his team. Makes sense why they would be, but holy shit."**_

**Eyyyyy, I know you, you were one of the first people to comment on my story, thanks a ton for sticking around… even though you may or may not be my dentist.**

**(And you should totally try a roller coaster, they're either the best thing ever or my worst nightmare, I can't really decide. **_**Next!)**_

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

_**"Anomynousmous**__**: Beautiful. Just Beautiful. An original quality work for once. I love how Dr. Coggles(Cog Goggles. You read that right.) is playing a semi-significant role in the story(so far). 10/10, can't wait for the next chapter this is amazing"**_

**Why thank you, I love compliments, and I'm happy you like it. (And **_**Coggles?**_** You're brilliant!) **_**Next!**_

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

_**"Wings on fire: **__**Amazing chapter! Following the loopy train of thought that stems from Izuku's ever so slightly damaged brain made me smile so much**_

_**And dr. Fujiko instantly making excuses as to not kill the sunshine child! So heartwarming, if a bit creepy.**_

_**I love this fic so much because it just balances angst and fluff so, so well!**_

_**Can't wait for the next chapter!"**_

**Hey! It's another OG commenter! Just knowing that people like this fic enough to stick with it every update makes my day, and don't worry, we got more angst and fluff coming up in droves (Especially when the fic hits the aptly named "Breaking Point" arc)**

_**Next!**_

_**"Kite kit: **__**Typical Izuku**_

_**So engrossed in his mission that he doesn't realize that he just won the hearts of so many evil scientists.**_

_**Here's hoping he doesn't realize these peeps are villains until it's most heartbreaking.**_

_**Until then I can picture him strapped to a lab table, calmly if a bit excitably inquiring about the next ability he will be given.**_

_**I wonder what All Might will have to say about the many-quirked Izuku.**_

"_**Well it looks like I messed up incredibly badly.**_

_**...**_

_**Don't worry my boy, I'll save you from yourself and make you my successor!**_

_**Why are you looking at me like that?""**_

**All I'm gonna say is that I can't wait to write All Might**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Aaaaaaaaaaaand that's all I got time for, I gotta post this soon and I don't wanna take up to much space ('Cuz that just inflates the document size and makes it so you can't just use the scrolly thing to see how much is left)**

**I won't do this every chapter, but definitely every once and awhile. If I didn't get to your review then I'm sorry, but I picked all these from the ch 4 revs at random **

**(Except the OG commenters, I went out'a my way to put y'all in here, you guys went and read a new fic that didn't have any favs or follows, literally within hours of me putting the darn thing up, and liked it enough to put a comment even though you didn't know if I was gonna be a douche or abandon it. Y'all get special privileges)**

**Follow, Favorite, Tell your friends, and leave a Comment (I love ta' read 'em!)**

**Keep frosty 'folks!**

**Next Chapter: Dec 28th(ish)**

**(Might be a bit off due to holidays and family, And the excuse "But I have Fanfiction..." never seems to work)**


	6. A Slippery Slope ch 1

***Slumps down into spinny chair***

**FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU*Bleep***

**WiFi: Broken**

**Phone's Hotspot: Slow as F*ck**

**Writer's block: Full force**

**Chapter: COMPLETED!... just a bit late tho**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**On another note**

** WHY?**

** Why is writer's block hitting me? I specifically plan everything out in advance to **_**avoid **_**that!**

**But **_**Noooooooo **_**if it can't trip me up on what I'm writing about, or what I want to do with said writing, it decides to focus entirely on a specific character. (Can it even do that?)**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**So now I apparently just **_**can't **_**write a decent Bakugo anymore, which really sucks because I was really looking forward to writing a Bakugo scene in this chapter…**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**But this is already **_**way**_** late, and I don't want to leave y'all hanging, so here's this, a chapter with the Christmas short merged into its intro to balance out the missing Bakugo chunk. (Which I'm gonna iron out, and have in the next chapter)**

-Rain of Sins-

-Arc Start: A Slippery Slope-

-A Slippery Slope: Ch 1-

The sun was setting, creating a marasma of reds and blues on the horizon, birds sat on the overhanging telephone wires, singing their pretty songs, fluffy clouds drifted overhead, weaving together to form beautiful tapestries. It was a nice evening, but despite this, Izuku's mind was somewhere else entirely. As the green haired boy trudged his way up the stairs to his apartment, his gaze was locked on the small rectangular shape in his hand.

-Izuku Midoriya-

-Lab assistant-

-ID no. 5280-

-3rd level access-

Izuku sighed as he opened the door to his home, the last few hours had been mentally exhausting. First there was the test, then his argument with Ms Yuyara, and then finally his "conversation" with Dr Ujiko, although it wasn't much of a conversation. The good doctor had somehow gotten the idea into his head that Izuku would make a great successor, and was hellbent on seeing this (from Izuku's perspective) absolutely terrible idea through.

'_I don't even know what is is they do at the lab!'_

All he knew was, from an off handed comment from Yuyara when she showed him out, that they were researching something about quirks and how they work on a fundamental level. Now it wasn't that he wasn't interested in quirks, far from it, but he didn't have the time to do something as major as become the _successor _to an incredibly accomplished scientist. The school year was approaching its end so he had homework galore, and finals coming up, the U.A. Entrance exam coming up in a few months, which he _needed_ to get ready for the physical portion of, and not to mention that when he got into the school, he wouldn't have the ability to take a bus out to the lab everyday.

Unfortunately when he tried to explain this to the scientist, he- well the best way to explain it would be "ignored aggressively" (although Izuku genuinely didn't know if the doctor was purposefully ignoring him, or if he was just so caught up in the moment that he had tuned everything else out)

This odd bit of Izuku trying to bring up why he couldn't accept, only to be brushed off, continued for almost 20 minutes before he eventually snapped and civilly told the man- He didn't yell and almost start crying, no matter what anyone said.

"_I'm going to become a Hero and save people with a smile on my face! I can't do that as your successor, so I'm sorry sir, but- But I can't accept!"_

After that, Ujiko had been forced to listen to what Izuku had to say, and they had agreed to a "compromise". No, not a compromise, a "compromise", there's a difference.

A compromise is when multiple sides sit down and agree to something that would benefit everyone involved. The "compromise" Izuku got was Ujiko telling him he could either A) Become his successor, or B) Become a temporary lab assistant- until the U.A. exam- and be convinced to become his successor by the end of his tenure.

Now in a normal compromise, the other side would counter offer, and argue for something more to their goal. But you see- Izuku is- He doesn't like arguing, and he's a bit socially awkward, and, uh… well…

He chose option B.

"Oh, Izuku! I didn't know you were home yet"

The staring contest Izuku had been having with his new ID card was cut short as he jerked his head up in surprise to see his mother in the living room (who he had completely missed do to being entrenched in thought)

"I know you said that you would be gone for an hour or two, but you wouldn't tell me where you were going, and I got worried despite you telling me not to, and-" The woman pushed herself off the couch and ran towards her son only to stop when she spotted what he was holding "What's that?"

"I-I-I-"

'_Think Izuku! Think!' _He rattled his head for an idea _'It's a school ID! No! You can't lie, don't be like _him_!'_

"I got a Job!"

She blinked "What?"

'_Awesome, it's not a lie, and it's not a half-truth, you're doing good so far!'_

"I-I got a job" he continued "I, I-Uh-I wanted tooooo, I-I mean I'm- um"

His eyes widened as a thought struck him

"I-I'm a growing young man, and everyday I take another step closer to adulthood. Getting a reliable job is the first step towards the financial independence an adult needs, to succeed in today's economy"

Izuku had his finger pointed up and was semi-mechanically sputtering out his words as if he were reading from a script… which he sort of was, this was almost an exact copy of one of the many (Wildly different and not at all connected) speeches Dr Ujiko had spouted to him to get him to accept the position.

"Housing, clothing, food, water, electricity, the basic necessities for living today all share one thing in common, they all cost money! And what is a man -ney- what is a human who cannot afford access to these things? WHY HE'S-uh, he's, um, is-er- no-not in very good shape" Izuku mentally wiped the sweat from his forehead for dodging a bullet, this one being the danger that comes from quoting Ujiko word for word. The doctor's original version had him yell _"WHY HE'S DEAD" _at the top of his lungs.

"A-And that's not all! Every successful adult needs to have a measure of responsibility to achieve their goals! By accepting this position you ar- I mean, _I am_ guaranteeing myself an opportunity to not only grow in character, but als-"

His bootleg speech was cut off by his mother placing a finger over his mouth to shush him, a sad smile on her face.

"I understand"

"Y-You're not mad?"

"Izuku, I-" She sighed "I know I've made a lot of mistakes, both as a parent and in general, and I know that I can't ever undo them, but I-I think" Her voice hitched as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath "I think it's about time I start to at least attempt to fix them"

"M-Mom I-"

Whatever Izuku was going to say was cut off as his mom pulled him into a hug.

"I know I was c-crying a lot at the time, b-but I said I would support you no matter what, right? A-And what mother would I be to go back on my word?"

Tucked into her shoulder, Izuku heard her sniff, and felt drops fall onto his shoulder. _'Tears' _he realized.

"I said I would support you 100%, so if you want to get a part time job, then I'm here for you, a-and if you still want to be a Hero…"

Izuku's breath caught

"Then I'll cheer you on every step of the way, b-because" She sniffed and took a moment to compose herself "B-Because you are a _wonderful_, and _caring_, and _brilliant_ young man, and you can do anything you can dream of"

"W-What about being a H-Hero?" He choked "Can- Can I be a good of a hero as A-All Might?"

"Oh Izuku" She squeezed him tighter "You're a bigger Hero to me, than All Might's ever been"

"M-Mom" He bit his lip, desperately trying to keep the tears that were welling up in his eyes from spilling. However, this had the unfortunate side effect of making it so he couldn't finish his sentence, so he did something better.

He wrapped his arms around his mother and hugged her, conveying his message as clear as crystal without so much as a word.

'_Thank you. Thank you so much.'_

And so they hugged until their arms hurt, and cried until they ran out of tears, until all the sadness floated away and all that was left was a filling warmth of content.

"Besides" She chuckled as she drew back, wiping a tear away "Why would I ever be mad at you for getting a part time job? It's not like you're working for a supervillain or anything."

-Rain of Sins-

"I **AM **A SUPERVILLAIN!"

"No. You're a brat"

Ujiko flipped through several reports on his tablet, calmly ignoring how Tomura raged and ranted in response to his (in his opinion very accurate) observation.

Now ignoring something is a very useful skill, and while it can help deal with quite a few things, it's not exactly an invincible strategy. For instance, it's very hard to ignore someone when they slam their hands on the table you're sitting at, and turn it to dust.

"You _will_ make me a nomu to my specifications!"

"Specifications? Hmmmm" The doctor glanced down at the pile of dust that was once a table before looking back at the self proclaimed supervillain "That's a very big word word for you Tomura, over three syllables" He grinned as Tomura glared "I'm _very_ impressed"

"You bastard!" The rising villain roared "I am the leader of the League of Villains_,_ I am the one who will kill All Might, how dare you talk down at me!"

"'League of Villains' huh? I think 'small group of two sort-of villains' would fit it much better"

"Ha!" Tomura laughed "Only _two? _You must be out of the loop, in just the short time since its conception, the League has gained well over twenty members, with more joining every week!"

"... You're right Tomura, I guess that name was a bit harsh" The doctor sighed "Your group now has twenty bottom rung thugs who I wouldn't trust with so much as a box of socks, 'Tomura's daycare for the dumb and desperate' fits much better!"

"How _dare_ you insult me! I'm the one who your nomu are for!"

"How dare I?" Ujiko's eyes narrowed dangerously as he pushed himself out of his chair "How dare _you_. My creations are for my master, for the wielder of the all-powerful quirk All for One, not for _you_. He is a genius of unrivaled potential, a man with power unmatched. _You _are nothing but a spoiled brat! You have no right to compare yourself to him!"

"I'll kill you!" Tomura spat, his hand twitching "It'll be easy, like completing a tutorial"

"Go ahead" The scientist hissed, his words ice cold "Kill me and all you'll never get a _single_ piece of my research!"

"_Gentlemen, please" _A digitalised voice cut into their argument _"We're all on the same side here, there's no reason to be threatening one another"_

"No reason?!" Tomura whirled around to the voice "This piece of low leveled trash insulted me!"

"_So he did" _The voice agreed _"But you said that you would kill him"_

"And I will!"

"_So you don't care about his life"_

"Why would I?"

"_But if you don't care about his life, why then should you care about his opinion?"_

Tomura blinked, raised his hand, stopped, and took a moment to think "But I- He went and- You know what?" He struggled before clenching his fists and growling "I'm done here, I'm done with this meeting, and I'm done with _you_" He pointed at Ujiko before turning and storming away.

Ujiko watched All for One's successor storm off, with a completely neutral face. His emotional mask only cracking to reveal a small scowl when Tomura slammed the door behind him like a little kid throwing a tantrum.

"... He's a brat" Ujiko finally said, as he slumped back into his chair "He's immature, he's petty, he acts like a child, he has no real plan other than disorganized chaos, and he lets his anger override _both_ his logical reasoning and common sense" the doctor concluded with a sigh "I've told you this before, and I know you won't listen to me, but please" He looked over to the TV

"He's not _worthy _to be your successor, Master"

"_Hmmmmm" _All for One mused, an air of amusement floating through the screen _"If you already know the result beforehand, why continue trying to change my mind?"_

"Because you deserve the best of the best, and _he_ isn't worthy of that title by a long shot"

"_You're right doctor"_ All for One admitted with a chuckle_ "He's far from the most capable candidate right now, but he'll grow beyond your greatest expectations… and that I'm sure of"_

_..._

"...and if he doesn't?"

The television fell silent, and for a moment Ujiko worried he might have angered his master, until finally...

"_You've found someone you believe to be a better successor_"

"W-What!? No!" Ujiko sputtered, his eyes wide in panic as he hopped to his feet "I wouldn't! I-I would never suggest to-"

"_Easy now doctor" _The supervillain chuckled _"I'm not questioning your loyalty, and I know you only have good intentions" _He reassured the man _"But we're too far into the game to back out now, too many plans would have to be reworked if I replaced Tomura… I would have to be impressed to a level I have seldom been before, to change everything now"_

"I wasn't going to say- I wouldn't dare-" Ujiko tried before he sighed, hanging his head in defeat "Yes Master…"

"_I'm sure whoever you have found would be more than qualified to be my successor, but as I've said, I've to much into Tomura to abandon him, besides' _He chuckled_ 'If you found someone you believe capable enough to outdo Tomura, I'm sure you've already made plans to use them'_

Ujiko didn't verbally answer, but his silence as good as confirmed it.

'_Nevertheless, Don't worry about Tomura, if you can't bring yourself to trust him, then trust in my judgement instead, I haven't lead you astray yet have I?"_

"No Master you haven't… I will trust in your wisdom, _but_" He gulped and steeled his resolve "I will not- no, I refuse to accept Tomura as your successor, not until he grows into the 'potential' you speak of, and until then I want nothing to do with him _or _his band of misfits"

"_That's all I ask of you- To trust me and to give Tomura a chance to grow. You and your art will be kept far away from the conflict and heroes, only your finished pieces will be put on display for the world to see. Is that agreeable?'_

"Yes Master, very much so"

'_Good, I'll leave you to your work'_

As the screen flicked off, Ujiko slumped into his chair and massaged his face with his hand, fighting off the sudden urge for a glass of alcohol- something to stave off the massive headache that was forming. (Which could be either Tomura or caffeine withdrawal- it was 50/50 at this point)

It had been awhile since he last had to come to one of these meetings, and he had forgotten how headache inducing they could be.

All for One would occasionally call for a meeting between himself, Ujiko, and Tomura, usually about every other month. He had originally called called it something along the lines of… Well now that Ujiko thought about it, he couldn't remember what his master had originally said its purpose was, he had tuned it out five minutes into the first meeting- when he realized the _real_ purpose of them.

To make him and Tomura actively not hate each other.

On paper it makes total sense: Ujiko is arguably All for One's most important follower (seeing as how he is both responsible for getting his master to the point of actually being able to walk again after his fight with All Might, and for the growing army of nomu under the supervillain's control). Meanwhile Tomura is the man's successor, and will continue All for One's work long into the future. Getting them to cooperate is a very worthwhile investment.

In practice however…

Ujiko sent another look down at the _used-to-be-table-dust_ coating his feet and grimaced.

Now it wasn't as if he wouldn't work _with_ Tomura, he did make the hands for him after all (creepy as they were), now working _for_ Tomura… well…

Considering Tomura's bullshit during the meeting had driven Ujiko to consider bringing _Midoriya_ of all people to his master, should tell you his opinion on that.

He groaned as his headache worsened. It wasn't like he was actually going to try to get his master to take the kid on as his new successor, it was just one of those thoughts that popped into the back of your head, and floated around.

(Sure I _could_ go and spend the money I'm saving to replace my broken car on that new TV the commercial is talking about, but I'm not actually going to, because that would be _stupid_)

Speaking of the kid, he should be finishing up a tour of the lab right about now. Ujiko had originally planned on showing the kid around the lab himself, but then All for One had called a meeting last second, and he was forced to leave a small recorded message for the kid, and tell Yuyara she was in charge of the tour, as he ran out the door.

'_...Wait' _He blinked _'Kid + Tour + Yuyara in charge + my luck'_

His brows creased as worry began to gnaw at the back of his mind.

He did tell her to ease the kid into everything slowly right?

_Right!?_

-Rain of sins-

"And these are the Nomu!" Yuyara concluded with a proud smile on her face, gesturing to the rows of large tubes that were lined up behind her, their bright green glow filling the room and blending almost seamlessly with her toxic green eyes.

"Aren't they great!?"

-Chapter: end-

**This chapter came out after my original December 30th goal, for this I apologise.**

**But.**

**I ain't gonna grovel or anything because this is one of the few times I can safely say "It wasn't my fault"**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**If you want to blame someone, blame my family and their horribly inconsistent time schedules that **_**somehow **_**managed to keep me away from my keyboard not just during Christmas break, but also through New Years and a large part of January.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**On another note, the fact that I missed my second goal of Jan 12th **_**is **_**my fault. Feel free to yell at me about that all you want.**

**(Though broken Wifi also played a role, so it's a bit of joint-blame, but meh- still mostly my fault)**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Now where was I? Oh, right**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**FOOOOOOOOOOOOLS!**

**You have given me **_**unlimited **_**POWAH!**

***Takes Swig of Hot Chocolate***

**The might of our empire **(This fanfic) **has reached over 200 Favorites, and over 15 **_**thousand**_** views! **(Number of times any particular chapter has been opened all added together)

**But that's not all, for I have obtained the most powerful artifact in existence! Behold, the **_**Community Gem!**_

***Takes Swig of Hot Chocolate***

**The Rain of Sins**** has officially been added to a community! (It wasn't by me btw)**

**We have gone from 0 community to 1 community.**

**Percentage wise, that's an **_**infinite **_**increases in POWAH!**

**Soon my friends, soon we shall **_**rule **_**the MHA FF.N page! **

**MWAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAahaa… huh?**

***Turns mug upside down***

**I'm out of Hot Chocolate**

…

**Fudge.**

**(Next Chapter: Jan 26/27~)**


	7. A Slippery Slope ch 2

** *That moment when you realize you put the wrong update date on the last chapter***

** Oof level: Large**

** It was supposed to say the chapter would be out Feb 2-3ish (2 Week updates people) but my calendar skills failed me miserably.**

**Random person: "But your still two days late from your goal"**

**Yea, yea, I'm well aware of that, but you can't rush art **

**Random person: "But that still doesn't change-"**

_**Shhhhh**_**, the chapter's starting**

-Rain of Sins-

-A Slippery Slope: Ch 2-

Laboratory Overseer (or "Lab Head" for short), is the title given to those who help run and 'oversee' the many laboratories, research stations, and storage facilities of doctor Ujiko Daruma. The man is a genius, yes, but not even he could micromanage every detail of every research project of every building, so he didn't bother trying to.

One lab head per facility, a person who is given free reign over everything in the building - so long as they follow any and all orders from Ujiko, willingly hand over control when it is deemed necessary, under no circumstances withhold any critical information whatsoever from their weekly reports, don't interfere with other facilities work, and (arguably most importantly) Get. Your Job. Done.

So needless to say, it is an incredibly important position, and one Yuyara takes great pride in… even if most in her situation wouldn't. See, everything about a lab head is directly tied to their work. Lab supplies, funding, workers, prestige, even how much you got in your paycheck was directly tied to what results you turned in to Ujiko. On paper this works just fine. In practice however, it makes a sort of feedback loop: the biggest labs with the best supplies, that can focus on multiple projects at once, get the most work done, which means they get more supplies, which means they get more assigned projects, which means they get more work done, and so one and so forth. Meanwhile the smaller labs are left with few ways to compete.

Is it a perfect system? No. Is it moral? Debatable. But a quick crunch of the numbers actually shows that by having his top labs six or so labs constantly competing against one another, Ujiko gets more done faster this way, so he's unlikely to change it anytime soon.

Which brings us back to Yuyara. The youngest, newest, and as such, most inexperienced lab head. Assigned to the newest, smallest, and least equipped lab.

She had been an incredibly bright mind all throughout her career, her not-always-standard way of looking at things let her solve problems that had others scratching their head. This combined with her almost obsessive need for a better paycheck (this due to the various debts she had acquired over the years), let her climb through the ranks abnormally quickly. So when she, one of the top performing scientists at the time, was approached for yet another promotion, she happily jumped at the chance, not even bothering to read what the papers she was signing said, let alone the tiny bits scribbled at the bottom of each page.

So when she first was told which lab she would be maintaining, she was devastated. How was she supposed to get anything done with _this_, it wasn't even_ built_ yet for heaven's sake! Not to mention that because of the nature in which her position was paid, she wouldn't be getting any form of payment until the lab completed an assignment, and even then- with the size of the lab and it's projected production output, her supposed "promotion" had actually cut her annual income (and by a not insignificant margin to!)

So, knowing this, she did what any person would do.

She went home, pouted, ate ice cream, watched shitty romcoms, and may-or-may-not have pulled out some emergency booze & gotten drunk.

A few mornings later, the bottles littering her apartment and her pounding headache really helped highlight her situation for her.

Her new position had no income whatsoever until the lab was finished, when it _was_ finished she wouldn't have the income she did as a top scientist, she was basically a joke to her peers (the other lab heads), and she couldn't go back due to all the information she was given when she was promoted (Oh she _could _have turned down the offer when she found out about her lab, but she was part of the team who had worked on the latest memory erasing nomu, she _knew_ what that thing did to people).

So with all this in mind she set a goal to fix her situation. She would make her lab one of the top labs or die trying!

Some might have called her brave, just plain stupid, or something inbetween. It didn't matter, her stubbornness paid off.

She had won the lottery, the metaphorical golden goose, a royal flush in this game of poker, and if she played her cards right, it insured a golden highway to the very top.

Izuku Midoriya, Ujiko's hastily picked successor had decided to not only wander directly into her lab, but also live far enough away from the other labs that daily transport to and from them was deemed "more burdensome" than simply upgrading _her _lab.

It had barely been a few days and already new supplies, workers, and funding was pouring in, two new expansions to the lab were planned, and the list of things just kept growing.

So when the boss had told her to take Green (her new favorite person), and give him a tour of the lab (her new favorite place), she made sure to go "Plus Ultra" and give the best, most detailed tour, she could possibly show off.

"And these are the nomu!" Yuyara proudly declared, her smile splitting her face "Aren't they great!?"

"I-I-I" Izuku stammered like a broken record, his face an odd shade from turning pale and going green at the same time "I-I-I-I"

"You ok Green?"

"I-I-I-Wh-What are th-those?"

"There the nomu!" Yuyara cheered with a small hop, seemingly un-affected from having to repeat herself "And now that you're here, we're gonna get more!"

"M-M-More!?"

"Yea, more" Her adrenaline high calmed down as she took in the kid's face "Are you ok?"

"I-It's- Th-The-They're m-mo-monsters" As he pointed weakly to the tanks, Yuyara's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, before shooting up in surprise when she realized what he meant.

'_Boss hasn't told him anything...'_

Now there was a lot of other thoughts that accompanied that, usually along the lines of _'SHIT SHIT SHIT!' _or _'FUCK FUCK FUCK!' _or even the very diverse _'SHIT FUCK SHIT!' _But that main bit was the most important.

'_Why hasn't the boss told him!?' _She stood, smiling blankly at the kid, belaying no sign of the flood of panic that was bubbling up inside her _'No-scratch that, why hasn't the boss told __**me**__ he didn't tell him!?'_

'_Wait… ' _Her smile faded- _'...Could it be? Is this the boss' way of telling me that my achievements and hard work have finally been acknowledged?' _-only to come back in full force_ 'Don't worry boss! I'll show you your trust is well placed!'_

Meanwhile a certain scientist was dashing through the streets, cursing Kurogiri for not answering his phone, while panicking because of how much he did, in fact, _not_ trust Yuyara with such a delicate situation.

"Well yes" she acknowledged the discolored Izuku with a confident chuckle "From a certain perspective, I guess they _could _look a bit like monsters, couldn't they? But lucky for us, they're a lot cooler than something as boring as monsters"

"W-What do y-you mean?"

"Weeeeeeell" Yuyara rocked back and forth on her feet "Take Bigfoot for example. At best, it's a man with a monkey quirk. At worst it's a man in a money suit, ugh _BOOOORRR-Ing_" She punctuated with an over dramatic yawn, smirking when she saw that despite the situation she had been able to draw out a small smile from Izuku, no matter how brief it may have been.

"These meanwhile have been genetically engineered by some of the brightest minds in the world, each holding a myriad of useful quirks!"

"W-Wait," Izuku stopped her, his brain processing what she was saying "You _gave_ these things quirks? And _multiple _of them?"

"Yup! Now you're getting why they're so cool!"

"That's…"

"Genius? Impossible? Scary? Worrying? Terrifying but also beautiful at the same time?"

"AMAZING!" Yuyara blinked-not expecting that answer at all- as Izuku continued.

"Quirks are such a fascinating concept, they provide the basis for our entire society, but their inbuilt limitations provide a natural barrier that hinders the vast majority of the population, even pro Heroes struggle to grow once they run into the limit of their quirk, with Endeavor being a perfect example. If you could simply _add_ another quirk on top of a person's natural one, you would not only be able to perfectly cover any of the original quirk's inherent weaknesses, but also-"

And thus Izuku began rambling to himself, now normally this was where someone would snap him out of his thoughts, either directly or indirectly, but this wasn't a normal situation. Instead of a class full of people perfectly willing to laugh at him, he was alone in a room with Yuyara -who worked for Ujiko,and was very notably stillscared of accidentally pissing his successor off. Now Ujiko would also occasionally ramble whenever he was deep in thought, and Yuyara had learned the hard way that he didn't enjoy being interrupted. At all.

So she let the kid ramble.

And so he rambled, and then he rambled some more, and he rambled on, and on, and on, and on, until finally a stray through lead him back to reality.

"... how exactly do you make them?"

"Ah, that's the million dollar question now isn't it?" Yuyara chuckled, quickly recovering from zoning out during the kids muttering "That information is usually saved for higher ups, but since your the boss' new number two" She smiled and continued, ignoring Izuku's weak denile "I'll make an exception"

'_Ok Yuyara, you've got one shot at this. You gotta convince the kid to stay, not scare him off, convince him nothing's suspicious about the very suspicious monsters in the very suspicious lab tubes, all while sticking to the truth as much as possible'_

She gave herself a brief mental pep talk before crossing her fingers and beginning.

"The nomu are created using human bodies as a base, and injecting them with various quirks"

The kid blinked.

Yuyara blinked.

'_Ok, ok, rough start, but we can fix this, I just have to be smooth about it''_

"Which turns them into monsters"

'_Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-'_

"But using people in experiments is _obviously _a very bad thing to do!" She rushed out before the kid could draw up the worst case -though true- senario.

"S-So because of this" She stammered, picking her words _very_ carefully "one of our labs started experimenting with cloning technology!"

(True- though it was completely unrelated to the nomu project)

"A-And after a big breakthrough in the project, we attempted to use one of the clones to make a nomu"

(Also true, but left unsaid was how it was horribly unsuccessful due to the fact they hadn't -and to this day still haven't- managed to make a clone that wasn't braindead)

"And not a few months later we had a completed nomu!"

(True yet again, but this was hardly the first nomu they'd made, and it was only successful because they pulled the plug on the clone-nomu project and went back to normal bodies)

"A-And so, uhh- Tada!" She waved back to the nomu, a pained smile on her face and a bead of sweat rolling down her forehead.

'_PleasebuyitPleasebuyitPleasebuyitPleasebuyitPleasebuyitPleasebuyitPleasebuyit!'_

Slowly she opened an eye to glance at the kids reaction, and-

Wide eyes, slack jawed, and absolutely starstruck, the kid had eaten it up

"That's incredible!"

_'Thank you Lady Luck!'_

"What are you going to use them for?"

'_Fuck you Lady Luck!'_

"That's a good question! A-And one I'm glad you asked!" '_Curse you Ujiko!' _"And because it's such a good question I-uh… have an equally good answer"

'_ThinkYuyara, you're capable of stringing different quirks into a giant super beast, you can find a perfectly reasonable explanation for having living weapons being held in an underground bunker, en' mass!'_

"Well if you think about it, their purpose is actually quite obvious" She said, hiding her panic with a cocky smirk "The Nomu are adaptable to any environment, they can be given quirks to deal with basically any situation, they follow orders to the letter without complaining, they uh, well…" Yuyara trailed off, wilting as it slowly descended into an awkward silence. This was due to one very simple reason. She had run out of BS.

Understanding that the risk of screwing the whole thing up was still very high (and that the cost of doing so would be higher once the boss found out), Yuyara decided to employ a tactic that had helped her out of numerous situations in the past.

Deflection!

"Well, what do _you _think they're for?"

"M-Me?"

"Yea, you. You're Ujiko's successor, consider this an into test to see if your brain's up to the task!"

"B-But I already t-took a tes-"

"I'm not hearing an answer, green!"

Izuku (easily scared as ever) hopped back in panic, before beginning to mutter to himself, his mind frantically trying to find a concrete answer to a question that didn't have one.

As this happened, Yuyara let out a sigh of relief.

Sending the kid on a metaphorical wild goose chase might have been a tad mean, but she wouldn't be losing any sleep over it. Now she hadn't spent that much time with the kid, but she could already tell how his head worked, she had worked with plenty of others who worked the same way after all.

All she had to do was get him hooked on a thought process, and the kid would play cat and mouse with his own thoughts, descending into a ramble of muttering that would quickly spiral off the original topic, leaving the question far behind them to be forgotten so she cou-

"Workers"

Yuyara blinked

"That's what it is" Izuku beamed at her "You're going to use them as workers!"

Yuyara blinked again

"When you think about it, it's absolutely brilliant!" Izuku grinned as he continued his spiel, unaware of the dumbstruck expression on the labhead's face "If you layer one of them with multiple fire resistance quirks and a few speed & strength quirks, it would make it perfect for rescuing people from burning buildings. You can make them perfect for performing rescues in deep water, unstable caves, and various other highly specified fields that few heroes are suited for, and then rent them out to agencies in need of them! And that's only on the Hero side of things, you could do the exact same thing for any labor intensive field, like construction or farming!"

Yuyara blinked thrice, before responding in really the only way the situation called for.

"Yes. You are completely correct"

Color her impressed, that wasn't a half bad idea. In fact, the more she thought about it, the better it sounded. It would not only give them a very believable (and more importantly legal) excuse for the public if the nomu program ever got leaked, all while providing a nice source of revenue as a cherry on top.

The youngest lab head scratched her chin in thought as she began to seriously turn over what the kid had suggested. One of the biggest concerns of the entire program was how if anything was leaked they had basically no way to avoid mass panic over the army of mindless monsters being hidden under the nation's nose. The kid's idea -while far from leak proof- was leagues above their current plan which could best be summed up as "brutally smash any and all potential data leaks with overwhelming force and hope it never gets to that level"

"C-Can I ask o-one more question?"

Yuyara turned back to the kid, who had clearly been mulling over his next words for a while, with a quickly suppressed grimace. The kid's all-to-smart questions were quickly becoming her least favorite thing.

"Well of course" She smiled while internally screaming _'No! No more questions! Save them for Ujiko, I'm running out of bullshit to come up with!'_

"C-Could… I-If I join… do… do you th-think it would be p-possible if…"

"Green, ya gotta speak up if you want anyone to answer your questions"

"I-Is" He took a deep breath "IS IT POSSIBLE TO GIVE MYSELF A QUIRK!?"

'_Geez Green, when I said speak up, I meant speak louder not yell' _Yuyara leaned back at the unexpected volume. The volume was unexpected, the question itself however…

Yuyara let out a huff, she really should have known the kid was going to ask that eventually, and the answer was simple… but also complicated.

Yes, No, Yes, and No.

Yes: It was _possible _to give people quirks with the technology they had (the Nomu existed for a reason).

No: It was not safe, as the human brain was not made to handle more than one quirk, and the result of brute-forcing it was evident in the nomu's animal-level intelligence (And while the result of forcing quirks into a quirkless brain was unknown, she didn't want to even think about what that would do to a brain that wasn't designed to handle _any _quirk).

Yes: There _was_ a way to do it safely, without harming the brain, but the only known way was with the use of Ujiko's boss' quirk. (Who the doctor would occasionally talk about in reverence, but none of the lab heads had ever seen, let alone met, the mystery man)

No: Using the quirk on Ikuku would be very unlikely, as getting this man to use his quirk on, well, _anything_ had so far been impossible. With every request made to research, use, observe, or even verify that the quirk actually exists, being immediately shot down by Ujiko.

So she told him this, wincing as the kid's shoulders deflated the more she explained (passing the second set of points off as "rumor" just to be safe, if her boss wanted to be all secretive about a subject, then she'd leave it to him to explain)

"Oh… S-Sorry, for asking, the answer s-should have been obvious, huh?" He apologized, mumbling something about "asking stupid questions" under his breath.

Yuyara watched as the brief flash of hope in the kid's eye withered and died in front of her. Wincing as a memory of an exact replica of that expression, mirrored on a small brown haired boy, flickered through her mind.

"W-Well hold on" She rushed "Just because we can't do that right _now_, doesn't mean we won't be able to in the _future!_"

Izuku perked up a bit at this "W-What do you mean?"

"Well that's what science is all about right? Taking a problem and researching it. At first, the solution seems hopelessly out of your reach, but then you get to work and make discovery. Sure it might seem small and insignificant at first, but one small discovery will lead to the next, which leads to the next, and before you know it your small discoveries have piled up and made a staircase to lead you right to the top!" She gave a genuine smile "Sure we can't safely give people quirks right _now_, but then again we didn't know how to make cars in the past either. Or planes! Or… anything else we have!" She concluded, waiting for Izuku's response.

…

"So-uhhh" She vainly tried to keep the conversation alive after realizing the kid wasn't _going_ to respond, before falling into an uncomfortable silence.

"...So it's possible…"

It was faint, barely a whisper, in any other room, without the eerie silence of the nomu storage room, she wouldn't have heard it at all, but that wasn't what mattered.

What mattered was that it was _something_. And more than that, it was the first _real _something Izuku had been able to grab onto since that doctor visit all that time ago.

And so Izuku, eyes filled with a fire that burned brighter than it had in years, clenched his fist and made a declaration.

A declaration to the world, and to himself.

"I'll do it. I'll study under you and Dr Ujiko, and I'll put my all into finding a way to give myself a quirk!"

_Listen Nerd, I'm the only one from this school who's hero material, YOU GOT THAT!?_

"A-And if it's not possible…"

_No. A quirkless person can't b-_

"THEN I'LL MAKE IT POSSIBLE!"

'_And I'll become a hero!'_

-Chapter End-

**I know, I know, I know, Kurogiri has a new backstory- I'll go back and fix it, just give me some time.**

***Sips hot chocolate***

**Ugh now I gotta cut him outta a big chunk of the story**

***Grumble Grumble* **

**I mean, who am I gonna get to convince Izuku that the world isn't totally black and white**

…

**Wait a moment**

***Sips hot chocolate***

**I mean, I wasn't planning on sticking to cannon's storyline completely anyway…**

**Huh**

**Now **_**that's**_** a good idea**

**(Next Chapter: Feb 16-17ish)**


	8. A Slippery Slope ch 3

** Statistically speaking, one of these days I'll get a chapter out on time (this one was on me btw, no callender mishaos this time), but then again statistically speaking, life should give me both time to write, and stable wifi at the same time every once and a while… Which hasn't happened yet**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Moving on.**

**There's been so many emotional outbursts from the smol green bean in the recent chapters.**

** He's a great character, don't get me wrong but it sucks that cannon!beginning Izuku is so polar. It's either Hero Mode" no fear, go all out. Or Meek, and passive. It makes it difficult to guide him through certain situations.**

** They mitigate this in the show by having all the trouble come to Izuku in the beginning, gradually building him up until he gets the confidence to go and track Bakugo down when he was captured by the league of villains at the training camp.**

** AKA: They used character development**

** Sooooooooo**

** *Sips Hot Chocolate***

** It's about time for some character development.**

-Rain of Sins-

-A Slippery Slope: Chapter 3-

"Hey Green, ready for your first day?"

-Later-

"Nonononono, the red vial goes over-"

-Later-

"Pay attention, if you do it like this…"

-Later-

"You know kid… I knew you were going to surprise me one day, you _are_ my successor after all, but I'll be honest… before this moment… I didn't think it was possible to catch that on fire…"

-Later-

"Izuku!"

"Y-Yes D-Dr U-ujiko?"

"Stop stuttering, it's annoying!"

"S-S-S-Sor-"

"WHAT DID I JUST SAY!?"

"Aaaaaaah!"

-Later-

"Uhhhhhh"

"Don't tell the boss?"

"S-Sure!"

-Later-

"A-Are you sure you want me working on the nomu? I-I mean I only started here a f-few days ago"

"Meh, you'll mostly just be handing people stuff. Besides, what could go wrong?"

-Later-

"The left one. NO! The other left! Oh shit, OH FU-!"

-Later-

"W-What does doing y-your paperwork for you have to do with b-being a scientist?"

"It's uhhhh, character building"

-Later-

"So the red vial goes…"

"Yup, now you're getting it!"

-Later-

"Unlike early genetic engineering techniques that randomly inserts genetic material into a host genome, genome editing targets the insertions to site spe-"

"Green! Stop muttering to yourself when you're reading!"

"S-SORRY!"

-Later-

"Hey, good job Green! You did it!"

-Later-

"Way to go kid!"

-Later-

"Not half bad Green"

-Later-

"Keep up the good work!"

-Later-

"You're doing great!"

-Later-

Izuku sighed as he dropped his head on the table, his forehead making a 'fwump' noise as it impacted the open book beneath him. It was an interesting book, covering the more exotic theories behind how quirks worked. But the book wasn't what had him sighing, it was the fact that tomorrow would mark one full month of him working at the lab, and quite frankly he was exhausted.

It had been quite an experience.

One one hand there were times when he got to learn things he had never imagined, and was allowed to truly let his mind run free, no one was really bothered by his muttering, and his more off-the wall ideas had actually been encouraged… And then on the other hand there were times like on his second day, where he almost burnt off his thumb.

But generally speaking, Izuku could honestly say it had been an overall enjoyable experience.

Now not all of it was enjoyable sure, especially that first week where he learned the hard way that no matter how smart he was, he had no idea how to operate in a lab environment. Izuku didn't walk in on the first day and suddenly start schooling highly studied scientists, at first he had stumbled around, tripping on his own feet, and provided as much help as a human sized sack of potatoes. But the "trial by fire" (as Ujiko put it) while painful, had turned out for the better, and with time to get over his nerves and some personal tutoring from Ujiko, he now was able to at least keep up with Yuyara and co while they worked.

Izuku continued to muse over his time in the lab silently, until he was snapped out of his thoughts as Yuyara plopped down on the bench opposite from him with a happy smile, unceremoniously dropping her food tray onto the bland cafeteria table with a loud bang.

Yuyara had been extraordinarily helpful to Izuku since he started at the lab- though how much of that was her genuinely being nice to Izuku, and how much was her trying to get on the good side of Ujiko's successor was still up in the air.

"Hey Green, whatcha reading?" Yuyara asked, though more as a way to begin a conversation than actual curiosity.

She got two bites into her meal before she registered the fact Izuku hadn't responded. Sending a questioning glance up from her food, she got-

"I am currently reading 'Jonathan Gold's extrapolated theories on quirk usage' written by Jonathan Gold"

Yuyara simply raised an eyebrow in response, causing Izuku to blush in slight embarrassment.

…

"Ujiko told me the best way to stop stuttering is to clearly think out everything I say beforehand, so I can read it like a script"

"Aaaaah" She nodded in understanding "I understand now mr robot, you don't have to continue explaining"

"R-Robot!?"

"Yea, no offense" Yuyara spoke through a bite of food "But it makes you sound like a robot"

Izuku blushed in embarrassment and tugged at the hem of his lab coat. Speaking of his lab coat, he had gotten it on his first day in the lab, where Ujiko had proudly "bestowed it upon him" Later that day he had offhandedly mentioned it was itchy to the doctor, who in turn glared at Yuyara (who admittedly hadn't actually done anything wrong this time). The coat hadn't been slightly itchy since… It was actually a bit creepy.

"Anyway, here ya go"

"What's this?" Izuku questioned as he took a folded white bundle from Yuyara.

"It's a high quality medical face mask that doctors wear, with your tendency to catch chemicals on fire, boss wanted me to give one to you"

"H-Hey, that only happened once!"

"Green, you sent an entire storage rack up in flames"

"S-Still only once!"

Desperate to change the topic, Izuku defaulted to a question that he'd been meaning to ask for awhile now.

"Why do we only have sporks?"

Yuyara rolled her eyes, well aware of his obvious attempt to shift the conversation away from anything embarrassing she could tease him about, but still responded anyway.

"They're cheaper"

"Cheaper?"

"Mmhm, easier to buy one one utensil than two"

"Th-that's the only reason?"

"What? You got something against sporks?"

"N-No! It's the o-opposite actually!"

"Opposite?" The scientist smirked "Now this sounds good"

"W-W-Well" Izuku stammered, well aware he had just talked himself directly into a corner "When I was a kid…" He trailed off into a mutter, nervously fiddling with the book in front of him.

"Come on Green, you gotta speak up if you want anyone to hear you" Yuyara snickered

"Wh-when I was l-little, I th-thought they were cool b-because they were like sp-poons with a qu-quirk…"

To Yuyara's credit, she waited a few seconds to start laughing.

"Q-Quirk? That's *snicker* that's amazing! HAHA" She took a moment to compose herself "S-So green, *chuckle* do you have any other random questions that will never benefit humanity?"

"A-Actually!"

Izuku, eager to steer the conversation a different way _again_, pulled out a notebook from his coat with "Lab Analysis vol 1" neatly written across the cover in permanent marker. The notebook, while still new, showed considerable wear from consistent use, and it's cover had several stains and burns spread across its face.

"I-I've been wondering about your quirk"

"My quirk?" She raised an eyebrow "Meh, my quirk's useless"

"You mean it doesn't help you with your work?"

"No, I mean it's just useless in general"

Yuyara sighed as Izuku tilted his head in confusion, before he could prompt her however, she brought up a gloved hand. She turned it around and stared at her covered palm a few moments before beginning.

"My quirk" She said "Is completely useless in every way, it's not helpful for any job, it's not helpful for being a hero, it wouldn't even be helpful if I wanted to become a villain. It will never benefit anyone, and by its very nature I-" Yuyara let out a shaky sigh. "Oh what the hell, you seem like a good kid, and you're gonna be sticking around, might as well get it out of the way" She refocused on Izuku "I'm gonna tell you a story Green."

Yuyara took a deep breath and her eyes, normally filled with a strange mixture of cheerful mischievousness, seemed to almost sink as if a weight had been put on them.

"When I was a small kid, I was was what people call a "latebloomer", I didn't have an extra joint in my toe, so I should develop one, but even after all my classmates found their's, I still hadn't. But despite the occasional teasing, I considered myself a happy child, living happily with my family. I had my mom, my dad, and my little brother" She began with a wistful smile "It was just the four of us, I didn't have any cousins, my parents both being single children, and my grandparents had died before I was born. We weren't well off, but we weren't poor either. We were right in the middle class, and we liked it that way. My parents had good enough jobs to be able to take us to eat out every friday without worrying about the cost, but weren't high enough up to have to worry about important business meetings making us cancel our annual family trip. We were happy… _were_ happy that is."

Any semblance of a smile on her face died as she continued.

"When I turned eleven years old, my mother got sick… very sick. The doctors weren't sure what it was, and only really knew three things, 1. It wasn't infectious, 2. They didn't know how she got it because she didn't have it before, and 3. They knew nothing else about it. A few days after she checked into the hospital, I started having nightmares that she would die. My mother, stubborn woman she was, managed to convince the doctors that since the disease wasn't transmittable, I should be able to sleep with her to help my nightmares. That night she held me close, and told me she wasn't going anywhere… She died the next day."

Izuku paled

"Her death hit my family hard, but it hit my father the hardest. It wasn't long until he started drinking and visiting a counselor for his bouts of depression. He never got abusive or neglective, but he stopped spending as much time with me and my brother, afraid his washy-washy mental health would rub off on us. He was never the same. But with both my mom and dad out of the picture, the responsibility to look after my little brother, who was five at the time, fell on me.

"Fast forward a few years and things had stabilized, I had turned fourteen, and my dad had done well enough to get a raise that more or less covered the income we lost with my mom's old job. I was doing well in school, and had decided to become a doctor, that way I could keep anyone else from losing their mom. It sounds stupid when I say it now, but back then I had my heart set on it… It was about this time when my dad started coughing.

"At first he laughed it off as a common cold, but as a month passed and it didn't subside, he finally relented and went to see a doctor… and then another, and another, and only when every doctor in the city had given him the same answer do I think he actually accepted what they told him. He had the same thing my mom had.

"Dad immediately started quarantining himself in his room, only leaving to go to work and to cook us food. When he was out of his room he washed his hands profusely, started wearing a cheap doctor mask, and took to limiting physical contact with me and my brother. It was all for a good reason when I look back, the doctors may have said it wasn't transmittable but he had still gotten it somehow, so he was doing everything he could to keep us from getting it. But as the years dragged on his condition slowly got worse and worse, and with every hacking cough, he isolated himself more and more, the only possible silver lining we had was that it hadn't progressed nearly as fast as mom's had.

"His increased isolation had the unintended side effect of making me almost completely responsible for raising my brother. By the time I turned 18, I was running the house by myself, I did the laundry, I was in charge of the groceries, I made dinner, I had even decided against college so I could get a job to help with finances, during these days I would often complain to myself how much work i had on my plate… It was only later that year that I realized how much my dad had been helping me out. Sick, old, and on his deathbed, he had somehow steered me in the perfect way so that when my brother and I returned from his funeral on a stormy night, I was completely prepared to take care of the two of us.

"Life dragged on, and before I knew it I had hit my twentieth birthday and things were finally looking up, I had just gotten a raise and my brother's 14th birthday was right around the corner. I decided to buy a big cake for the two of us to celebrate, money had always been tight with just myself working so I hadn't been able to get either of us a real cake since my father died, and I just knew it'd make his day.

"When i walked home that evening, cake box in hand, I found myself genuinely hopeful for what the future would bring, I was happy, I was-"

Yuyara sighed and lowered her face to rest in her hand, the story seeming to be physically draining to her, letting out a warmth-less chuckle with her next words.

"I was so stupid

"I walked into my rundown house that day to find my brother collapsed on the floor, once I rushed him to the hospital the doctors didn't just confirm my worst fears, they told me something _worse_

"My brother wasn't just sick, he had _been _sick for a long time, hiding it from me so I wouldn't worry. He was immediately hospitalized, and I was politely informed that he had slipped into a coma. And just like that I was alone, no friends, no family, my only positive was that the doctors let me spend time with him during visiting hours, which I made a point of going and holding his hand at least once every day. Of course just when I thought I had hit rock bottom, the medical bills started arriving. I had to start pulling double shifts, and working extra time just to cover them. All the while my brother's condition kept worsening, which means he needs more medicine and better doctors, both of those cost more money, money that I didn't have.

"So I started borrowing money. I took loans from banks, when they stopped I went to loansharks, when they stopped I went to the mafia, and every day when I went to see my brother he was doing worse and worse.

"That's how Ujiko found me… Sitting in the rain, tired, alone, and crying my eyes out on the side of the road. My apartment had kicked me out due to not being able to pay rent, the banks had frozen my account, and all the shady people I borrowed from were nipping at my heels for my long overdue payments.

"The doctor recognized my potential and used my situation to "adopt" me into his science program. He gave me a bunk in one of his biggest labs and an opportunity to prove myself, fully knowing I would work my ass off to climb my way up to better and better paying positions to handle my debts, providing him with an extremely motivated worker without him having to so much as lift a finger.

"Of course this was also the time I gained access to the resources I needed to study my long overdue quirk. I reasoned that maybe, just maybe, if I could find a way to activate it, it would benefit my situation somehow."

The scientist let out a hollow chuckle, wiping a bit of water from her right eye

"The irony of all ironies, I wasn't a late bloomer, I had my quirk all along, my quirk, my wonderful power" she took a deep breath to steady herself "If I touch someone with the palm of my hand, I _accelerate_ any disease they have, hell it's grown over the years and now I can actually give people diseases I've accelerated before… and I wanted to become a doctor as a kid?" She turned her attention away from Izuku and back to her food, stabbing at it "What a fucking joke"

Izuku didn't know what to say in response, hell he didn't know what to say in general.

"Oh- You don't have to worry!" Yuyara's head suddenly shot up, misinterpreting Izuku's silence "I wear gloves, see? I can't turn my quirk off, but it doesn't work without skin contact, so you're perfectly safe"

"N-No, th-that's not it! I-It's just…" Izuku fiddled with his lab coat "Wh-What happened to y-your..."

"Oh" Yuyara smiled with a sad sympathy "My brother still hasn't woken up but he's stable nowadays, his condition stopped declining after I started wearing my gloves everywhere" She gave a sad laugh "Go figure"

A somber silence fell upon the table as they ate, it wasn't uncomfortable, but it didn't feel right to talk. This continued until Yuyara finished eating, and an alarm on her phone went off, signaling she needed to be somewhere.

She collected her tray, and began walking away before pausing and turning back to Izuku

"Look, I didn't tell you all that for pitty, it happened a long time ago and I'm over it all now, but… shit this is gonna come across real arrogant isn't it? I know being quirkless has its own reasons for being shitty, but you shouldn't put yourself down about it so often, because even if your quirkless, well… sometimes I wish I was born without mine"

Yuyara's story lingered in Izuku's head throughout the rest of the day. It lingered as he went home, it lingered as he ate dinner, and it lingered when he laid in bed that night.

It stayed with him not just because of how powerful it was, but because it left him with a question to mull over. A question that went against everything he had been taught as a child, against everything preached to him by everyone he'd met, and against the very core of his childhood dreams.

Yuyara's quirk had caused tragedy for her and her entire family, and with the sheer volume of people in the world, there had to be others with quirks just as bad, if not worse, than her's.

Maybe quirks weren't all they were cracked up to be?

Maybe, just maybe, that by being born quirkless… he had dodged a bullet.

These thoughts made him think. So he thought, and then he thought some more… and then a bit more. He thought a lot about the thoughts.

Such thoughts included "how could he help these people?" and "_could_ he even help these people?"

These thoughts prompted more thinking, which prompted more thoughts to be thought about the thoughts.

Unfortunately Izuku's habit of feeding his entire attention to a single line of thinking had the downside of turning his situational awareness down to a level barely above that of a rock's.

Such situational awareness would have been very useful the next day in class, when he muttered and scribbled in his notebook, failing to notice a certain blond who's glare burned into the back of Izuku's skull.

-End Chapter-

** Well, what do ya think?**

** Izuku's time at the lab is coming along nicely, and we've got a bit more insight on our sciency side character. **

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Speaking of Yuyara, please note, this is **_**not **_**an OC centered story. Yuyara has depth yes, but this isn't because she's going to be playing a huge role in the story, this is because a character without any personal motives or drive comes across as flat and stale and boring as hell to read.**

**(although her role **_**has**_** been expanded from "make lab not feel empty/ help Izuku with character development" to something with a bit more impact now, just because MHA cannon finally decided to get around to giving Kurogiri an actual backstory that ever so happens to run completely parallel to my carefully laid plot) (Ok look, I know I'm a tab bit salty, but I specifically went to check his wiki page waaaaay back when I was first planning out the rough draft, and now I find they changed it recently)**

**So if you were worried I was turning this into an OC craze, you can rest easy now.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**On another note, I got to play with the "Chekhov's gun" principle this chapter! Yaaaaay, plot threads!**

**Oh, and Bakugo! Bakugo finally showed up again, didn't he. (For like half a second, but same difference)**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**If you want details to my thought process for more Bakugo, there are two reasons for this.**

**1\. Fancy actual stuff for plot reasons.**

**2\. I like having things explode, and Bakugo is a limitless source of big kabooms**

**P.S. My birthday was on Monday, and I skipped a bunch of important junk to celebrate ('cuz why not?)**

**P.P.S. I slept through most Tuesday due to cake and ice cream overdose, missing even more important stuff**

**P.S.S. Don't try dipping a stale poptart in Hot Chocolate (Don't ask)**

**P.P.S.S. Missing important stuff means that when you get back, people dump all the work you missed onto your head, regardless if your chapter is finished or not.**

**P.P.P.S.S.S. I am literally writing this on top of an entire essay and a small mountain of paperwork (Because everything important in work and college happens when you're away). Note: I'm not asking for pity or trying to give an excuse why this is so late, it's just me ranting because ranting is fun.**

**-Next Chapter: Mar 1-2nd ish (Hopefully)-**

**(It's only a week between chapters, but this one got delayed and I want to stick to my original schedule so we're gonna try it, wish me luck)**


	9. A Slippery Slope ch 4

** A Boeing 747 (passenger jet) uses a gallon of fuel per second, and gets 0.2 miles per gallon.**

** A flight from New York to London is approximately 3461.2 miles, this means we burn roughly 1,730,510 gallons of fuel per trip.**

** I felt this fact needed to be shared.**

** That is all.**

** *Sips Hot Chocolate***

** Also whaddya know, it took me almost two weeks to write this, it's almost as if I should only post a chapter every two weeks and stop trying to do these one week stunts**

** (And with my WiFi going out, just now finally being fixed, causing an extra week of delay, we're technically back on my original schedule)**

-Rain of Sins-

-A slippery Slope: Ch 4-

Some people might think the words 'Bakugo' and 'quiet' should never be put in the same sentence without an 'is not' between them. The evidence for this claim was many, the young pyromaniac was loud, boisterous, and made his presence known everywhere he went (Not to mention his quirk wasn't exactly subtle either).

However, this wasn't because he couldn't be quiet, and was instead tied to a much larger aspect of Bakugo as a whole. His ego. Simply put, Bakugo loved his ego, and his ego was boosted by people knowing he was there. Simple math, simple solution.

But while Bakugo loved being the center of attention, he had long since accepted that if he was ever to be the number one pro hero, he would also need to know how to act in a more discreet fashion.

Of course, this didn't make the sight of him silently stalking down the street any more unnerving.

Bakugo sneered as he was forced to quickly dart behind a wall to avoid being spotted. Just because he _could _be quiet didn't mean he _liked_ doing it. Being forced to sneak around like a rat pissed him off, and (as per usual) it was all Deku's fucking fault.

Last week it came to Bakugo's attention that the idiot still hadn't withdrawn his application to UA. At first Bakugo had simply ignored it, if the idiot couldn't understand that he wouldn't pass the entrance exam that wasn't his issue, but with his attention drawn back to the quirkless nobody, well…

It didn't fucking make sense!

In the short amount of time Bakugo had stopped giving a shit about Deku, the idiot had changed his whole act! It wasn't anything big enough to be noticeable to the average passerby, but to Bakugo, who had been pestered by the idiot since they were kids, it stood out like a sore thumb.

The idiot had stopped cowering to the sides of the hallways with his head tucked down like a turtle, instead weaving through the crowds of students like an actual fucking human. He had somehow managed to stop completely falling apart in a normal conversation, and had managed to tone down his stutter. He didn't pay anywhere as much attention to any laughs or jeers directed his way, acting like he was too absorbed in his fucking journal to hear them. And speaking of his stupid ass journal, he had always been noting down things all the time, but recently he had turned the dial past 100% and had gone off the fucking deep end with the stupid thing. Hell, Bakugo couldn't think of a single time he had seen him put the damn thing down!

The little shit was getting more confident.

The UA entrance exam was creeping closer every day, and the one person who didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of actually passing was getting _more fucking confident!_

Basic deductive reasoning concluded that he had found something that made him more sure he was gonna pass. But if something could give _Deku_ a fucking shot at passing, and Bakugo, who was already set to _dominate_ the exam, could get ahold of it…

Not even his mounting anger could keep a maniacal grin from his face as he imagined, not just blowing past his opponents, but completely _obliterating_ their scores.

Of course when he asked Deku nicely about it (Read as "Yelled at, and intimidated"), the quirkless student screamed and bolted.

So now Bakugo was doing what any normal person would do, stalking Deku until the idiot either A: led him to his goal, B: started muttering to himself and revealed his secret that way, or C: wandered into an alleyway or someplace where Bakugo could corner him, without the idiot running like a complete wuss.

Things were going smoothly, if a bit slow for Bakugo's taste, when Izuku sent a glance at his phone's clock, let out a quiet "oh shit" as his eyes widened, and bolted down the sidewalk like a madman.

Bakugo followed in suit, letting out a curse and dashing after Izuku, continuing his cursing spree everytime his target turned a corner, making him lose eye contact for a few seconds.

And so for the next few minutes passersby were treated to a young teenage boy panicking as he sprinted through the streets, closely followed by another much more pissed off teenager chasing after him, while also swearing up a storm that would make any mother cry.

This continued for quite a bit, each second a tick on the proverbial time bomb that was Bakugo's mounting anger. Thankfully however, doomsday was avoided as, just before Bakugo snapped and used his quirk to fly ahead and tackle the idiot, Izuku promptly collapsed on the ground with a loud exclamation of "I'M HERE!"

This sudden stop caused Bakugo to slam his feet down to slow himself, trip on said feet, and follow Izuku's example of nose diving into the cement.

Shaking his head and blinking a few stars out of his vision Bakugo pushed himself up with a scowl while Izuku let out a string of "I'm not late! I'm here on time!" and similar phrases.

Of course said scowl morphed into a smirk once he actually registered what he had heard. Deku was "here", meaning he had lead Bakugo exactly where he wanted. Finally, after being forced to quietly follow and then chase Deku through the streets, his persistence would pay off.

...Only-

"What the fuck?"

-It wasn't exactly what he was hoping for.

In front of him wasn't some secret training ground, it wasn't a hero agency, it wasn't even a gym, it was a-

"I came all the way out here, for a weird ass building in the rats ass of fucking nowhere!? Deku, you fucking idiot!"

Izuku, having realized Bakugo was present with his initial outburst, was too busy panicking to respond properly, the fact he had just led _Bakugo _of all people to the lab, despite all the warnings and precautions Ujiko had practically drilled into his brain, really didn't help.

"Just when I thought that _maybe _you had finally fucking gotten your shit together, you pull this bullshit!" Bakugo seethed as he stormed towards Izuku, dragging him up by his shirt "What are you hiding!?"

"Wh-Wh-What do you mean!"

"I MEAN WHAT'S MAKING YOU SO FUCKING COCKY ABOUT THE UA EXAM SHITHEAD!"

Izuku, to his credit, took a moment to think about Bakugo's words before tilting his head and letting out a confused "Huh?"

Bakugo, to _not_ his credit, was Bakugo and took that in the way only Bakugo could.

Obviously Deku was both ignoring him, playing dumb, and treating Bakugo like he was an idiot all at the same time. AKA: The insult of all insults.

"**WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE YOU LITTLE SHIT!?**"

"Good Question!"

Izuku blinked

Bakugo blinked

And then something grabbed the back of Bakugo's collar and dragged him off Izuku.

Caught off guard, and completely unprepared for any form of counter attack (if this could even be called that) Bakugo tumbled backwards and stumbled about before steadying himself and sending a burning glare back towards Izuku.

Standing in front of the teen was a short pudgy man with a rather large mustache and a pair of (in Bakugo's opinion) wonky goggles.

"A very good question indeed!" The man said with a cheer "Who _do_ you think you are? Going and assaulting one of my employees like that, and on my own private property no less!"

While the young explosion quirk user was still trying to decide how exactly to respond to the sudden appearance of the man, Ujiko brought up a hand and fiddled with his goggles. A soft blue light flashed from them, so small and quick to dim that Bakugo dismissed it as a glare from the afternoon sun without thinking twice.

"Hmmm" Ujiko's eyes seemed to shift ever so slightly, looking in Bakugo's direction, but not actually _at_ him, subtly moving back and forth almost as if he was reading something hanging in the air "Katsuki Bakugo, age 15, quirk type: emitter, quirk name: 'Explosion', top marks in all his classes, applied to take the UA entrance exam two months ago, hasn't applied to _anywhere _else, and overall has forgon the 'don't put all your eggs in one basket' lesson to instead place his entire future on the -admittedly quite large- chance of him getting into UA" Ujiko's eyes settled back on Bakugo "Did I get all that right?"

"Y-Y- HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET ALL THAT!?"

"How do you think I did?" The scientist responded with a calmly raised eyebrow,

Bakugo tore his eyes from Ujiko and glowered at Izuku, missing the doctors smirk as he did so.

"Regardless of 'how' or 'why' or any other interrogative word, I do know. And I know a lot of other things too" Ujiko waited a half second for Bakugo to refocus on him before continuing "For instance, I know of UA's zero tolerance policy to advanced misdemeanors, delinquency, and infractions. Which, despite your personality" Ujiko adjusted his goggles "You surprisingly have only been marked for minor ones in the past. Very interesting"

Ujiko continued to smirk as Bakugo fumed

"I feel that I should make it clear any further actions against my business or employees, can and will be reported with all necessary details and information to the proper authorities" Ujiko fiddled with his goggles again, causing the blue glare to disappear "The cards have been laid out before you Mr Bakugo, do with them as you will"

Bakugo opened his mouth to yell, clamped it shut, ground his teeth, clenched his fists, raised his head high, "Tch"ed, and then stormed away with his hands in his pockets.

Izuku watched his childhood friend walk away with wide eyes, Ujiko had just talked down Bakugo, like actually made him listen with words! Izuku hadn't thought that was possible!

"Ahem"

Oh right. He started sweating as his thoughts were drawn back to the situation, he had just led someone to the lab, one of the very few things Ujiko had told him to _never _do.

"So that was the Bakugo fellow you mentioned before huh? I must say I'm not very impressed" The doctor stroked his mustache as he began muttering to himself "it's a bit sad actually"

"M-Mr Ujiko?"

"That ego of his is going to be a problem for him in the future, especially with a quirk like that… He's like a bus with no driver…"

"D-Doctor?"

"One that's heading full speed towards a waterfall… with _spikes _at the bottom… dynamite covered spikes! Doomed to kill everyone on board in a fiery, gruesome death..."

"M-Mr Ujiko?"

"... I really need better analogies"

The scientist was dragged from him musings by a tug on his coat, causing him to turn to Izuku who, thankfully, hadn't heard his mumbled comparison.

"I-I-I w-want to s-s-say"

"Spit it out kid" Ujiko punctuated with a light chop on Izuku's head "A man of science doesn't have time to waste stuttering like a buffoon!"

"I'M SORRY SIR!"

"Hmm? What for?"

"W-What do you mean 'what for?' I-I led him to the lab!"

"Ahh" Ujiko nodded in understanding "Well it's a good thing this isn't the lab then"

"What?"

"If you were going for the lab then I'd say you were about, oh I don't know, a block or two off" Ujiko let out a chuckle "Which is a bit understandable really, all these warehouses look the same"

"Wait" Izuku took a moment to think "If this isn't the lab then why are you here, a-and what was all that about private property?"

"Well that's quite simple really, you're always early, and this time you weren't"

The doctor nodded in confidence while Izuku's brows furrowed trying to remember if that was actually true, he could have _sworn _he had made sure to be exactly on the dot to avoid a repea- but his thoughts were interrupted as Ujiko gave him a pat on the head and continued

"Something _very_ important must have happened to get in the way of science, so naturally I dispatched a team to help!" Ujiko sighed "Unfortunately all the lab's scientists were actually busy doing their jobs for once, and Yuyara was on break -and heaven forbid she actually do something _productive _on break" The doctor smirked as Izuku chucked a bit at that "And the property bit well, that bit… that was just bullshit"

"M-Mr Ujiko!"

"What? It worked like a charm, stop fussing" Ujiko waved his hand dismissively while turning and beginning the walk towards the lab.

"W-Wait!"

"Hmm?" turned his head with a lazily raised eyebrow

"I-I" Izuku swallowed "Thank you for helping me"

Ujiko smiled "Anytime kid"

"M-Mr Ujiko..."

"Besides I don't much care for bullies" The doctor said with a cough "they're just cowards too afraid to actually be a villain" Turning back to the road, he began walking again "Now come on, we're way behind schedule, and I still have something really important to show you!"

"Yes sir!"

And so the apprentice sprinted after the master, unaware of the shapes that slithered through the shadows, watching after him as they had done since Ujiko named him his successor all that time ago.

-Chapter: End-

**Have some more character development and some fleshing out of side characters.**

**Speaking of side characters**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Ahhhh Bakugo, bull headed and stubborn as his is, would definitely see Izuku simply getting so caught up in his work he stops paying attention to -and forgets about- things that would cause him to panic, as proof he was growing a spine or knew something Bakugo didn't.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Next chapter things are going to start happening, and then the chapter after (maybe the one after that, this chapter was supposed to be longer, but that last bit was just too good to cut off) we hit the entrance exam.**

**I originally wanted to hit it at chapter 10, but eh, 11/12's close enough.**

**Now *rubs hands together* Comment time!**

"_**Smilesfornone**__**: **__**Thanks for updating. Love the story so far. Hope it keeps going. I always try to check up on stories I like. So thanks.**_**"**

**Thanks bud! I put a lot of effort into writing, I'm glad you enjoy it**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

"_**Vividsk: Imma be real, I really like how you wrote Ujiko as someone who has some semblance of morals and his characterization is joy in and of itself**_**"**

**We don't get to see a lot of Ujiko in the main series (I think he's gotten like 2 frames in the show, and even then it was only a side shot), so anyone who wants to write him in a fanfic has to rely on the wiki… which also has almost nothing on him.**

**So I took what I could gather from the wiki, what we know he does for All for One (The nomu and keeping the guy alive when his head practically got blown off by AllMight), and weaved them into something that I felt was faithful to the series while also fun/interesting to read. So it really makes my day to know I'm doing a good job, thanks!**

(EDIT: Apparently, Ujiko has gotten a bunch of attention in the most recent manga chapters, well newsflash: 1. I don't read the manga, 2. Dammit, this was planned out before Kurogiri had a backstory and Ujiko had anything resembling advanced character. I already re-wrote several major plans for the story to get around Kurogiri getting stuff, I literally _can't _do the same for Ujiko and expect the fic to retain any sort of plot quality for the first quarter. So I'm really sorry, but we're sticking with this Ujiko)

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

"_**TheGreatBubbaJ: Oof.**_**"**

**Oof x2**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

"_**9Fiction9Addict9: Thank god we're past the sad izuku arc. I know your suppose to feel bad for him and stuff but I honestly just wanted to beat him up lol. This awakend the inner bully in me, I hope your happy.**_**"**

**See, I **_**could**_** do that thing where I get all defensive and start whining and junk, but here's the thing. I relate to this comment 100%. I have wanted to slap Izuku before as well, and just have him be, ya know… Not a complete wuss all the time.**

**I mean come on! You literally just punched a serial killer, who hunted pro-heroes as sport, into the dust not a week ago and you're back to flinching away when Bakugo starts yelling? Buddy, you've gotta have more confidence in yourself!**

**But that's why I used ~Character Development~! Now we can start having Izuku actually start **_**doing things**_**, and then when we hit the entrance exam in a chapter or two, things will actually **_**start happening**_**! (Thank the lord)**

**So yes. I am very happy.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

"_**PuppyCake: Happy Birthday! 18 feb**_**"**

**It was the 19th, but I don't really care, I'm thankful either way! Thanks a ton! :D**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

"_**Kite Kit: **__**Awesome chapter! Aw, poor Yuyara, she doesn't deserve that. Bakugo's awful. Someone please shoot him and free our smol bean from his torment."**_

**No, no shooting Bakugo, he is needed for plot, wait until plot is over, but not now, plot is important.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Aaaaaaaaand that'll be all for today! Stay safe, wash your hands, always wear your seat belt, and I will see you all in two(ish) weeks!**

**(Oh, and if you have any suggestions, don't hesitate to PM them to me, I can't promise I'll use them all(I mostly have the story planned out already to avoid writer's block), but I diffidently enjoy reading them, and implementing good ideas wherever I can)**

**-Next Chapter: Mar 29-30th~ish-**


	10. A Slippery Slope ch 5

**I'm back!**

**Computer is fixed, a certain virus cancelled all my plans, it's a perfect recipe for some good quality writing time.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**On a completely unrelated note, there's a 'rule' in writing that says "show don't tell" and that basically just means that your writing flows better if you lead your audience to a conclusion rather than just stating it. **

**For example, if a character is nervous in a situation, don't just say "_ is nervous", the character should let the audience know they're nervous, by acting nervous. Obviously that's a really simple example, but you get the gist of it.**

**Unfortunately I'm kinda bad at the more advanced forms of it :/ **

**(This is in response to the general feeling I got from the reviews and a few PMs)**

**The things in the shadows were nomu, and Ujiko showed up not because "Izuku wasn't early" but because the nomu alerted him that something was up.**

**I tried to show this by having Izuku doubt Ujiko's reason, then immediately afterwards establishing the fact that Ujiko is willing to lie when it suits him, and then having the nomu bit at the end to tie it all together. **

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**But eh, looking back I can see how it's a bit vague, oh well, you can't get better if you don't have any mistakes to learn from.**

**(Also, yes Momo is on the character tags for a reason, but chill for a bit, we haven't even gotten to UA yet)**

-Rain of Sins-

-A Slippery Slope: Ch 5-

Izuku had long since grown accustomed to working on the various nomu at the lab. Granted he was mainly just in charge of doing routine checkups, and anytime something actually exciting happened he was delegated to the role of assistant, but that didn't really matter here.

What _did_ matter was the fact, Izuku could tell what lye before him was different from all the other nomu.

"My successor, behold my latest attempt at creating my magnum opus! My latest masterpiece!"

It was huge, an enormous hulking figure rivaling All Might in size.

It was covered in a thick, tar colored skin that bulged, and in some places ripped open, unable to contain the sheer volume of muscle mass the beast had.

It's mouth was a demonic imitation of a bird's, a bony beak filled with giant spikes of teeth.

And of course, as all nomu did, it's brain stood proud and exposed for the world to see, two sickly, beady eyes staring into the void.

It was monstrous, it was an affront to nature, it was…

"Amazing…" Izuku whispered, his eyes wide in awe.

Before him stood not just a creature, but a living testament to the power of science. The power to push beyond the natural laws that held the universe in place, to break and bend them to the will of man. To break free of the chains that had held down mankind, and become more than any human was ever meant to be.

The power to make dreams into reality.

The power to rewrite destiny.

Ujiko's laugh snapped an embarrassed Izuku out of his trance.

"Haha! 'Amazing' indeed my young successor! And I see your attention went almost immediately to the finer details, truly I have taught you well!"

Izuku blushed in embarrassment at being called out. While the nomu's appearance _was_ impressive, the scientist in training had almost immediately beelined for the terminal to the left of the tube to get a look at it's genetic makeup.

And what a genetic makeup it was!

A quirk for increased speed.

A quirk for super strength.

A quirk for shock absorption.

A quirk for shock suppression.

_Three _different quirks for increased regeneration.

Not to mention the different mutation type quirks that had been layered on top of one another.

This thing was a _monster_.

""It's beautiful isn't it?" the doctor chuckled "Why i'd say it's one of my best works of art to date!"

Impressive? Undoubtedly so. Beautiful? Art? Ehhhh, Izuku had learnt a lot from the good doctor, but one thing he hadn't picked up on was his teacher's sense of "art", and obsession with creating his "magnum opus"... though after seeing this, he definitely understood the man's reasoning for that last one.

Izuku's awe struck smile mellowed as a stray thought ran through his head.

"What are you planning to do with this?"

"Hmm?"

"W-Well" Izuku stuttered, now actually thinking about what he was saying "It's just that this could do a lot of damage if it got in the wrong hands, s-so I was wondering what you were planning on doing with it"

"Ahh" Ujiko scratched his moustache, suddenly a bit sheepish "Well, you see… I kind of haven't really… thought that far ahead?"

"D-Dr Ujiko!"

"What? It's not like I was going to rob a bank with it"

Technically true

"W-Well yea, b-but still! You have a living super weapon in your basement! I-If the Heroes ever found out about this-" Izuku paled as he thought of the consequences of that happening.

"Oh relax kid, my employees know how to keep my mouth shut, and only the higher ups even know about these sort of experiments" Ujiko hummed as he started fiddling with the tube's terminal "Besides, 'Heroes' were part of my inspiration for this art piece anyway"

"What?" Izuku questioned, honestly taken aback by the statement.

"Well… awhile back, I had the unpleasant experience of being stuck in a room with a guy who just wouldn't shut up about how 'one day he's gonna be really strong, and beat All might, and he'd be the best, and bla, bla, bla', long story short, it was very annoying, but it got me thinking. If I could make something that could go toe to toe with _All Might _of all people..." His grin twisted into a warped smile "If one of my creations could fight the greatest Hero on even ground, then it would _have_ to be my greatest masterpiece!"

Ujiko's grin weakened as he sighed "Of course, now that I've actually tried my hand at making the thing, all you have to do is pull up some of All Might's old videos and it becomes pretty obvious. As impressive as the nomu is, it's a long way from beating the guy"

"Wow…" Izuku gazed at the take with a new light "To think a little kid could inspire you to make this…"

Ujiko opened his mouth to correct Izuku, paused, and really thought about the person he was talking about before continuing. "Yea, I don't know how old he was, but form how he was acting, he couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 at most"

This caused Ujiko to start laughing like he had told the best joke in ages, but Izuku didn't pay him any mind as he wandered back to the tank.

'_So you were made to fight All Might huh?'_

The quirkless student frowned as a picture of All Might's withered form waved through the back of his head. Glancing at the terminal displaying the creature's list of quirks and physical capabilities, Izuku couldn't help but begin to worry as a startling conclusion began to form.

Ujiko was a lot closer than he thought.

"Y-You'd have to add a l-lot more quirks t-to b-b-beat All M-Might!" He said instead, completely smooth, without any stutter at all, no sir, he had covered up that (_regretful_) lie perfectly.

"Bah! 'Add more quirks' he says, like it's that easy, come on kid, I thought I taught you better than that! Giving shit a quirk is a headache and a half, giving it _multiple _quirks is damn near impossible, and all the stress from trying to figure out how to do it is most likely the whole reason I lost my hair! Do I need to have a flash recap lesson on giving nomu quirks?"

"N-No sir"

"Giving multiple quirks to a host is not difficult because of the quirk application process" Ujiko began, ignoring Izuku's response "Adding a quirk to a host is almost laughably easy with the technology we have at the lab, and as long as the host's body and mind have been augmented to handle the strain of these quirks, it is theoretically possible to have a nomu with infinite quirks, but does that mean the process is easy? No! It doesn't!"

"This is because the greatest challenge us scientists face when adding more than one quirk isn't the host's body or mind, it's not the application process, it's the quirks themselves! Quirks do not _like _one another! If two opposing quirks are placed in a host, then just as a body will reject organs it recognises aren't from itself (as with organ transplants), the quirks will reject one another! This is a problem unsolved to this day, and one that remains the single biggest roadblock in our research! This is so important, in fact, that I will repeat it! This problem has _not _been solved, we have only managed to find ways to work around the issue so far, such as using quirks similar enough to each other that we can trick them into believing they are simply a by-product of each other."

"The nomu in front of you is a perfect example of this, and is the absolute furthest we have been able to stretch this method. Every single one of it's quirks is a physical based quirk, and every one of it's quirks simply adds onto something the creature already had. It already could heal itself, it already had muscles, it already had skin and bones which naturally absorb shock and protect the internal organs, it is only because of this and two mutation quirks that rope them even further together, that the beast is not _dead_! And even then, it's genetic structure is teetering on the edge of total self collapse!"

"So Izuku" Ujiko stopped pacing and whirled around to face his apprentice "If I decided I wanted to make it also be able to turn into a puddle, and shoot fireballs from its eyes, what would happen?"

"T-The quirks would reject each other?"

"The quirks reject each other!" Ujiko howled "The quirks would reject each other, the nomu would die, my hopes would die, all the resources spent on it would be wasted, it would be a huge financial loss, I would have to start all over again, and my mother would laugh at me for being a failure!"

…

"Ignore that last part"

"Y-Yes sir!"

Ujiko slumped against the wall, his anger at having his masterpiece basically called 'not good enough' to his face, having been ranted away, and sighed as he lost himself in his thoughts.

His master's quirk was a horrifically beautiful piece of art, one that had undoubtedly sped forward his research by decades, but even then, it hadn't solved the problem of quirk rejection. All for One, contrary to what it's use implied, didn't steal someone's quirk, at least not in the way you would think. The quirk All for One bypassed the quirk rejection issue entirely by not taking quirks, but instead by copying them, expanding itself to imitate the quirk's abilities, and then destroying the initial quirk.

The quirk was incredibly fascinating to study, as almost none of what it did worked as you would expect it to. For instance, the ability to "gift" a quirk to another isn't actually a power of the quirk.

It's not an ability, but rather a built in safety mechanism, if the wielder absorbs a quirk that is detrimental to their health, they can "offload" it onto another host in order to save themselves… Quite a few steps away from a gifting mechanism if Ujiko could say so himself.

As for why it couldn't just _uncopy _a bad quirk without having to dump it on someone else, Ujiko believed it was just more evidence to his personal belief that nothing in the world was perfect, even something like a nearly all-powerful quirk.

It was sad really, not even All for One could solve the infinitely infuriating quirk rejection problem, and now his latest masterpiece -the one he could honestly say had the most potential of anything he had made in a long time- would never reach what it was could be capable of, all because of a single problem.

It was almost funny, such potential held _just_ out of his reach, if only he could figure out how to make quirks play nice, or (since that was unlikely to happen anytime soon) find a way to ignore it completely.

"W-Well, what if we just did something that didn't trigger the rejection?"

Exactly, he needed find something that didn't trigg- _wait a moment_

"What about things that aren't exactly quirks, like engineering him to have denser muscle mass, denser bones, o-or having claws! Those are things you can do just by basic DNA editing! T-The technology was around a long time, like even way before quirks were a thing -though it was experimental at the time- but with a little bit of an overhaul on the foundation, I'm sure we cou-"

Ujiko just stared at Izuku, stroking his chin while zoning out everything his successor-in-denial was saying, the first two sentences bouncing around his head like an overly obnoxious beachball.

Carefully he walked over to the corner, where a small stool laid on it's side. He pulled it upright, and gave it a little dust off, in the back of his mind he was mad at Yuyara for leaving things lying about in such an important room, but he didn't act on it. Instead, he slumped onto the stool, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"That… that would work" Ujiko's annoyed huff, finally caught the attention of Izuku, bringing him to stop his ramble "That would- why didn't I think of that before? I-I've been working on my art for decades, I was stuck on trying to string quirks together for _years_, and all this time I could have just- I could've..."

Suddenly Ujiko stood up, the sudden motion knocking the stool over, back into its original position.

"You." he jabbed a finger at Izuku "Follow."

Of course the word 'follow' might have been a bit misleading, as the doctor grabbed the collar of Izuku's coat, dragged him out the door, down several hallways, and to a vacant room, where he unceremoniously tossed him in.

The scientist in training went to continue the single word train with a 'what', and a 'why', but Ujiko was already ahead of him.

"Stay."

And so Izuku, confused and just a tad bit scared, stayed.

The room was almost completely identical to the one where he had taken Ujiko's test, back what felt like forever ago. The walls were empty save for the cold steel they were made of, with the only things of note being the door, a wooden desk, a chair, and a ceiling light.

Though it wasn't like this was some special room, just because it looked like the testing room. Very shortly after he started coming to the lab on a regular basis, Izuku had learned _every _office looked like this - even the one Ujiko had commandeered when it became clear he was going to be spending a lot of time here.

Don't get the wrong idea though, just because all the rooms were the same, didn't mean they were all the _same._

For instance, this room was empty, it was cold, stifling even. Meanwhile Yuyara and Ujiko's offices had personality, and an air of life. Ujiko's was just because he had a ton of empty coffee cups laying about everywhere, while Yuyara's was due to all the unfinished paperwork lying about, the occasional beer can, and the frickin _minifridge _she somehow snuck past Ujiko, ironically hiding it underneath the stacks of paperwork Ujiko lectured her about picking up.

Izuku was snapped from his thoughts as the door slid open and Ujiko walked in, pushing a cart full of books, boxes, and a tablet, slightly struggling do to its weight

"There are 300 items on this cart" He grunted as he gave it a final shove into the room "and around another 500 on the tablet. These are all highly important documents that I've been meaning to see if I can use to further my own research. Unfortunately I haven't had the _time _to go through them yet." He coughed as he dusted off his hands "Get those sorted and report back to me tomorrow, you're getting a raise- no scratch that, you're getting a promotion to whatever position gets you a private lab"

"B-but I've only been here for t-two m-months!"

"Exactly! And you're already more competent than literally every other person I have in this building!" The doctor smoothed out a few wrinkles in his coat, and turned towards the door "Now if you'll excuse me I need to set up an industry wide meeting, where I yell at everyone for failing to realise something so simple, for so long"

"W-Wait d-doctor Ujiko w-wha-"

"You've got two weeks to get all that read, three days to compile any useful information, and then four more to hammer out a good idea or two -could be for a project, a study, or hell even a whole new field of science, I don't care as long as it's impressive- then your going to present said idea to a group of me and my top scientists"

"This is your big chance kid!" Ujiko sent a wide grin over his shoulder as the door closed behind him "Knock it outta the ballpark, and prove 'em I was right about you"

Izuku watched the door close, staring blankly as his brain tried to comprehend what all exactly had just happened.

First.

What?

Second.

_What!?_

-Chapter End-

**Ok. So. Confession time.**

**This was **_**supposed **_**to be a stupid-long 10k-fuckin-words 1080P-HD-chapter with science-BS and plot-shifting-junk that ended this arc and led into the next one with the entrance exam… but then my computer broke, and I went on a forced half month long writting starvation period. **

**Finally I was able to get my comp back yesterday, so I immediately opened up this chapter aaaaaaand… nothing.**

**It's not that I forgot how to write or anything, but for whatever reason, the part of the chapter I wrote **_**before**_**, and the parts I'm trying to add **_**now**_**, just don't like each other, and feel all disjointed and junk.**

**So.**

**I added a bit just to get it to a stopping point, and ended it.**

**This chapter is basically a glorified note of "Hey I'm not dead!", and a notification that you're gonna get all your fancy-shmancy-shnizz-and-junk next chapter. **

**(This chapter's also two and a half k words, and since I'm splitting it from next chapter I might not be able to hit my 10k word goal, and that kinda pisses me off, not gonna lie. I might toss in some sort of AllMight or Night eye segment just to see if I can get the word count where I want it to be)**

**Also.**

**Due to a certain quarantine, as of literally five minutes ago, I am now out of Hot Chocolate.**

…

**Send Help.**


	11. A Slippery Slope ch 6

**Now hold on, I know what you're thinking!**

**(Still outta Hot Chocolate btw)**

"_**Wow Zack, you promised this would be a super cool chapter, and now you're late!"**_

**But I'll have you know that A) I didn't put a next chapter date at the bottom of the last chapter, so **_**technically **_**I'm not late, because I never set a date to be late to, and B)... yea, I'm totally late, two week cycle and all.**

**But I knew my life was gonna spiral out of control with a few events coming up, which is why I didn't put any date at the end of last chapter, but oh boy did I underestimate just how much BS I can wind up walking face first into like an idiot.**

**-ahem- Computer, coronavirus, computer again (false alarm this time), WiFi being shitty, family, work, my Dad was stupid, Issues with driver's license, coronavirus complicating said issues with driver's license, cat knocking an entire toiletpaper role into the toilet and clogging it (which wasn't really that big of a deal, but damn was it annoying), and now riots not two blocks away… yay.**

**It's like an odd mix of annoying distractions/apocalypse bingo over here.**

**Ya, know, if I got a few more I could probably sing 'em to the nations of the world song. (You know the one from Animaniacs, that's kinda annoying, and **_**way**_** to catchy for its own good - so catchy in fact that I haven't heard the darn thing in years but could probably still recite it from memory)**

***Pauses to think, starts muttering under breath* "**_**United States, Canada, mexico~Panama, Haiti, Jamaka, Per~U. The Republic Dominican, Cuba, Caribbean, Greenland & El Savador too" **_**SHIT! I can, fudge, that- I don't know how to feel about that**

**But enough about my pointless struggles.**

**Here's a mini-chapter to set up the big one I've been working on between everything as an apology for not posting in literally forever.**

-Rain of Sins-

-A Slippery Slope: Ch 6-

There were three types of days that took place in the world. There were good days, there were bad days, and then there was a third, special type of day -the type of day Yuyara had the wonderful fortune to be having at the moment- the 'meh' day.

Not good, not bad, just a solid meh.

She had arrived at work at 10am _yesterday_ and had been working nonstop since then on wrapping up the project her team had been working on for the better part of the season, as well as trying to straighten out an entirely different project that had fallen on her head when another lab fell through on it.

It was hours of nonstop, tedious work that seemed to grind out forever, and made her want to rip out her hair. But it was done, it was done, and she'd never have to deal with it again.

Now she could just go home and fall asleep. Bed, couch, it didn't really matter, the sweet serenade of blissful sleep called to her like a siren's lullaby and any cushioned piece of furniture was fair game.

…

Unfortunately the world didn't seem to agree with her plans.

"So wait" Yuyara pinched the bridge of her nose as she processed the deluge of information that had just been dumped on her weary mind "you want me to… do what exactly?"

"P-Please help me make something good enough to impress Dr Ujiko!" Izuku practically begged the lab head, his face stricken with panic - though it could be argued that the amount was overblown considering the good doctor hadn't mentioned any penalties or punishments for failing his little quest.

"Miss Yuyara please, I need help!"

"No, Green, see, I get that. You need help, very easily understood, but…like..." Yuyara paused, and waved her gloved hand about a bit, as if to summon the word she was trying to find from the hazy fumes her mind was running on. "...Why?"

Seeing Izuku about to go on another tangent, she held up her hand and clarified "I mean c'mon Green, keeping you from blowing yourself up is a given, but actively helping you build stuff from the ground up? And on a privately assigned project at that? Ujiko would kill you for pushing your work onto other people" She blinked "or laugh and give you a raise… one of the two. Besides, you're smart and all, shouldn't you give it a go by yourself? Hell, knowing you, you'd probably pull something out of nowhere and outdo yourself"

Yuyara said this with a straight face, unbetraying what she was really thinking. On one hand, helping Izuku would get her major brownie points with her future boss. On the other hand, she had just pulled an all-nighter so A) she was more-than-probably too tired to give any decent ideas without a dozen or so holes in them, and B) her natural aversion to work was being magnified by her lack of sleep. On the other, other hand, she actually liked the kid, and having him at least try on his own at first before stepping in, would probably be better for him in the long run. And on the other, other, _other_ (most-important-by-far) hand, Ujiko was unpredictable at the best of times, and getting involved when he was playing _puppetmaster _of all things just screamed 'bad idea'.

"So. Why?"

"W-Well" Izuku shifted in place and scratched the back of his neck, as if approaching a topic he really didn't want to touch.

*mumble mumble*

"Huh?"

"The *mumble mumble*-ing up"

"Green, it's hard to have a conversation if you can't understand the person you're talking to"

Izuku started to mumble again, only to be cut off by a glare from Yuyara, steeling himself and taking a deep breath, he began again.

"...The U.A. entrance exam is coming up, and I don't have time to prepare for both."

The lab head didn't respond, staring blankly at Izuku with an equally blank face.

Luckily, she had prepared for this type of situation beforehand.

With a sigh, she ducked beneath her desk, and started to dig through the large cabinet beneath it.

The rustling sound of paper being pushed aside filled the air before swiftly being replaced with a swift click of a lock, a black door swinging open, a brief pause, and then the clinks of glass containers and aluminum cans jostling about.

And alas, just a few seconds later Yuyara emerged with her prize - a tall glass bottle with a light yellow drink inside, which she swiftly uncorked and took a long sip of.

"Homemade brew of lemonade, jacked up with a shit ton of caffeine, sugar, and just a _dash _of alcohol" She answered Izuku's unspoken question as she set the bottle down unceremoniously on top of a stack of papers.

Caffeine to fuel her brain, sugar for the energy to act upon whatever she thought up, and alcohol because it's the liquid courage the world runs on.

Unfortunately none of those things helped with frustration.

"Dammit Green, I thought you were past the whole hero thing!"

"It's been my dream my whole life, I can't give up on it now!"

Izuku's comeback was quick, and absolutely _burning _full of emotion, so it only fit that Yuyara's response would have just as much… of course there's an argument or two that deflating, dropping your head into your hands, and giving a huge sigh that screamed 'I give up' in everything but words, could hardly be considered 'burning' with emotion but I digress.

"Look Green" Yuyara mumbled through her hands "if you're _really _that hellbent on this, why don't you try taking some of Ujiko's advice to heart? He might be a bit off kilter, but he's a genius in his field. I'm sure you've been around him long enough to have heard his favorite saying by now" Yuyara straightened her back and coughed a few times before continuing in what was probably the worst impression of said doctor, she could manage "'Work smarter, not harder! Work harder and you'll get more done in the short term, but tire out and fall behind in the long term. Work smarter -more efficiently- and you'll get more done both in the short _and_ the long term!'"

"Work smarter not harder?" Izuku echoed "H-How am I supposed to apply that in this situation?"

"Well… think about it, your problem is that you have two different goals, but only enough time to prepare for one, sooooo…" The lab head gestured for him to finish her sentence.

"Do something that will do both at the same time?"

"Bingo!" Yuyara confirmed with a finger gun blast, despite the fact she had been going for a _'Drop the hero thing, and focus on Ujiko's project because that's more important', _but she'd take what she could get. "That way you can prepare for both, without having to split you're focus between two projects"

Izuku's eyebrows furrowed, before shooting up again as he realized the possibilities of what she was saying, ideas flying though his mind like rain in a storm.

Seeing that Ujiko's favorite employee was about to descend into one of his mumble tangents again, Yuyara coughed into her fist to catch his attention.

"You know, you were complaining about not having enough time to prepare for everything not two minutes ago, shouldn't you be getting started like, now?"

Yuyara watched with a twinge of guilt as Izuku bolted out of her office, frantically thanking her as he went.

What she had told him _was _solid advice, no doubt about it, there was just one _tiny _little detail that she had taken the liberty to not mention about the reasoning he had drawn from it.

This lab (and in turn every resource Izuku could get his hands on) was geared entirely towards biological and genetic research.

There was no mecha suit he could build, no miracle tool kit he could patch together, nothing he could make with the materials at his disposal would help him pass any form of hero exam, especially if he's also trying to impress Ujiko at the same time.

And since Ujiko had beaten the fact that jabbing himself with a quirk was a _bad idea _into his head at least once a day, the only things he could get that could possibly pass the exam were A): something nomu related and thus something that was extraordinary banned on every level from being taken in public, or B): either some sort of fast acting neurotoxin or a controlled virus of some kind. Neither of the latter being any form of "Hero-y" stature that would work well in a Hero test.

There was absolutely no way this could blow up in her face, and wind up with Ujiko's successor enrolled in U.A., the very place that Heroes trained to catch those like said doctor.

...she'd have to lock down the virology branch labs for the next few weeks just to be safe.

Yuyara could only sigh and take another swig from her drink, coming to the conclusion that if things kept going the way they were, she might wind up 'mysteriously' falling ill and staying home for a time frame that ever-so-coincidentally lined up exactly with the week during the UA exam and Izuku's presentation.

-Chapter End-

**Short chapter is short.**

**Buuuut, my schedule is now back on schedule, which means that A) the mega chapter I have been promising (and failing miserably) to deliver, will finally be coming around, and B) I can start putting dates at the end of chapters again.**

**-Next chapter: July 4th-**

**(Because FREEDOM, and stuff… and flying explosives, those are really fun... too bad I have to work for most of it)**


	12. A Slippery Slope ch 7 (end)

**Hey everyone! Happy 4th of July! Ya know, 'cuz this chapter is totally being posted on the 4th of July, just like I wanted it to be. Hahahaha!**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu- don't worry, the story's not dead, I on the other hand am most certainly dead.**

**I'm dead! I'm slumped over in my chair right now, dead… well, not physically dead, metaphorically dead, I'm mentally exhausted right now, so metaphorically and mentally, I am dead.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**But not my grandmother, no, she's _actually_ dead, and is, inadvertently, the reason why this is so late (sortta). I mean I didn't know her all that well, and her death didn't have me huddled in the corner with a mental breakdown or anything, but it was still tough. **

**Though on the other hand, dealing with the family fallout drama afterwards, whoa hoho- now that was a serious candidate for a mental breakdown, albeit one with a lot less crying and a lot more of 'smashing my head into a wall until I fall into a fucking coma so I can stop dealing with this Bullshit'**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**Gotta love family!**

**(AN 1: There was a big error on my end last chapter, Izuku's thing with Ujiko and the UA entrance exam are a good month apart, I have no idea how I messed my timeline up that badly)**

**(AN 2: I may or may not have gotten hooked on this fancy new 'tropical fruit punch' I found at the store on sale two days ago, and I may or may not have gone through an entire gallon of the stuff already in a vain attempt to drown my sorrows)**

-Rain of Sins-

-A Slippery Slope: Chapter 7-

"Work smarter not harder… two birds with one stone…"

The young scientist repeatedly mumbled to himself as he flipped yet another page.

On paper it was a great idea, he only had time for one project but needed two things, so have that project be able to fit the requirements of both the things he needed.

But there was one problem… Where was he gonna find something like that?!

The answer came to him surprisingly quickly.

The cart.

Ujiko _had _told him to use it after all, and that coupled with a crippling lack of other leads led to the very obvious choice of action of 'read through the cart's contents until something interesting pops up'. Unfortunately Ujiko had been spot on in his description of what it was 'a bunch of important information that he wanted to see if any of it could be useful to his research' which implied both that it was (A: all highly unorganised, and (B: any interesting finds would be buried under a vast majority of useless info.

Which led him to his current situation. Hand digging through the cart's contents book by book, page by page, all while finding nothing for his troubles. This was his third day straight so far, and at the rate things were progressing it was looking like he'd be back tomorrow as well.

Izuku scratched the back of his head as his frown deepened, nothing he'd seen so far was anything close to what he needed. Oh sure there was quite a bit of interesting information, and quite a lot of it would be very beneficial to his work in the lab, but outdated theories on genetic programming wouldn't exactly help him beat up robots (And boy was he glad he actually thought to look into said exam, or he would have wound up looking stupid with his original idea of just building a buttload of sleep darts)

Closing the book he was currently holding with a snap, and tossing it over his shoulder to the ever increasing pile in the corner, he reached absentmindedly towards the cart when something caught his eye. Down at the bottom of the wheeled cart, only now revealed after so many items being removed, and still mostly hidden under the overflow of books and notepads, was a box. A battered, dented, partially crumpled cardboard box with more than a few stains to its name, that looked woefully out of place alongside the other (though very unorganised) reasonably well kept books.

Meh, what the hell? It was worth a shot.

Pulling the surprisingly heavy box off the cart and out from under it's book-esq prison, Izuku gave it a brief once over to make sure it hadn't been torn open before casually flipping open the box's top, only to be greeted with a virtual Pandora's box of content.

In the box was a large collection of manila folders, nearly all of them having the words "Classified" or "Restricted Access" printed on the front of them, some practically falling apart with age, all of them bursting with papers and graphs. There were stacks of papers that had very obviously been sent through multiple shredders in the past, painstakingly stitched back together, and considering there were more than a few that were half burnt it was very clear someone had wanted these _gone_. Hell, there were even honest to goodness _floppy discs_, just _sitting there_, no one had used tech like that since _way _before quirks. And just to top it off, none of it was in Japanese.

Interest officially piqued, the young scientist began pulling everything out and organising it into manageable piles. Quickly two different major categories began to form, the ones he could kind of understand, and those he had no idea where to even begin.

"Ok, so these are in English" Izuku placed a slightly moldy folder to his left, filled with the English language he had learnt the basics of in school, before picking up a paper filled with something very much _not _English "but these… what ar- wait" He blinked "is this… Russian?"

Sure enough, the box had been filled with an almost perfect split between English and Russian with a good bit of German scattered about, which really only raised more questions than answers. Having now pulled everything out, Izuku sat back with a huff, going over everything a second time, and slowly but surely the gears began to turn.

The age of everything, the obvious attempts to destroy many of the files by either shredding them or by fire, the really old tech and floppy discs, the large "Classified" stamps

"These are pre-quirk government files" he said numbly as it all clicked together.

There was a good fifteen seconds of silence before Izuku dropped his head into his hands and let out a miserable groan.

Ok, first off: how the _Hell _did Ujiko manage to get _any _of this? Actually no, scratch that, he didn't _want_ to know, there was no way in hell it was anyway even _remotely_ legal. He should shove everything back into the box and pretend he never even saw it, maybe even burn it to save everyone the headache.

…

Buuuut…

Izuku cursed his curiosity as he reached for the more important looking files and pulled out his phone to help translate.

Quickly it became apparent a reasonable chunk of it was completely useless, whether due to the paper being too far damaged or simply because of the information it contained was of no value, the effect was the same.

Tossing aside yet another report of political corruption and potential treason, Izuku absentmindedly picked up a binder sitting off to his left. Flipping it over a few times to figure out which side was the front, he gave an interested yet disappointed 'hmm' when he figured out the binder didn't have the secrets of the universe printed neatly in bold letters on the first page, but acted as a timeline of sorts, one that detailed classified activities over a period of years. Already resigned that this most likely wouldn't hold anything of value he sighed and began to skip through it halfheartedly.

Blah, blah, blah, more political corruption, useless, useless, useless, quirks start appearing, blah, blah, genetic experimentation to understand where quirks came from is fruitless (interesting but still useless for his current situation), blah, blah, numbers start increasing, general misuse of quirk powers, mass panic, blah, blah, military crackdown, riots, skip some pages, governmental collapse, anarchy, useless, useless, Silver Order, anti-quirk extremists, blah, blah, blah, "In order to better combat the emergence of omega-properties I put forward the motion to begin"… wait.

Doing a double take, and re-reading the small cluster of paragraphs he had almost just completely skimmed over, Izuku's perseverance paid off, and his eyes widened like something out of a cartoon.

Quickly he began shuffling through the mounds of paper like you would a puzzle box, pulling out anything that seemed to have any sort of connection to what the binder detailed.

Fumbling out his new journal from the inside pocket of his lab coat, Izuku began hastily jotting down bits of information without any coherent organization. And as he sorted through the various documents, each paper acting like a piece to some deformed jigsaw puzzle with his own notes to fill in the gaps, a grin slowly grew across his face.

Quirks, despite how common they are in the general populous, were an extraordinarily dangerous thing, and there was a _definitive_ reason that so very very few people in history had ever been born with two, and why there had never been a case of someone with more than that.

… a reason Ujiko had seen fit to show Izuku first hand. The stress exerted on the human brain by even a single quirk is extraordinary, and adding more just stacks more on top, magnifying the issue… to an extreme degree

Ujiko had taken Izuku to one of his larger facilities to observe the final steps in the nomu creation process. The young boy had watched, horrified, as the brain, unable to naturally survive the strain put upon it, had been injected with various chemicals to stay operational, causing it to balloon outward. At the same time, the tissue around the top of the head began to decay, dying at an alarming rate, and flaking off like nightmarish snowflakes, this allowed the engorged organ to burst through the weakened skull, leaving the now finished nomu with it's signature exposed brain.

Izuku had run out of the room as soon as the operation was complete, and between frantic breaths had asked his teacher why, why would they use chemicals like that if they had such a horrific effect?

Ujiko's response had been calm, simple, and horrifyingly enlightening.

They didn't.

For all the large needles and menacing tubes, the injections to the brain had only been to keep the organ from dying under the strain. The swelling, the tissue decay, all of that was a direct result from putting an unnatural amount of quirks into the body and their correlating strain on the brain -the swelling in particular was simply the body attempting to adapt in order to handle the stress it was put under.

The demonstration had been Ujiko's brilliant way of convincing his protege to not attempt to give himself a quirk without direct supervision, after Izuku had refused to stop bringing the topic up in conversations for the first few weeks.

Needless to say, it had worked very well.

…

However.

Izuku's grin sharpened to have an odd gleam as the young scientist's mind flashed back to Ujiko's personal nomu, and the suggestion he had given the old doctor during their meeting.

Genetic manipulation didn't just pertain to quirks now, did it?

Izuku's pen was practically flying as it streaked across the papers haphazardly scattered around him, so absorbed in his work was he, that he didn't even bat an eye when one of the lights flickered and died, douseing half the room in darkness, nor did he notice when his elbow knocked one of the various papers off the table.

Silently fluttering to the ground in the shadow covered room like some wannabe fallen angel, it landed with a slight spin to reveal a mess of Izuku's hastily written gibberish, titled with bold, neatly printed words that stood out amongst the frantic scribble that covered it's face.

"Project Neptune - The super soldier experiment"

-Rain of Sins-

_Thunder crashed as the night sky lit itself for but a fleeting moment, only to be enveloped once again by the weave of black hanging overhead._

_Thick blankets of rain fell from the heavens and crashed upon the earthly city, drowning out all noise save for the wind that it rode upon._

_A crack split the air once again, as lightning rent the sky in two, and upon the highest of skyscrapers, teetering on the edge, the pale light illuminated the distinctive outline of a man._

_The darkness that cashed back down upon the world once the lightning vanished, made most of the man's features indistinguishable, save for the large labcoat he wore, fluttering in the wind and completely drenched by the rain._

"_You know…" He began "I find storms like this to be such an interesting irony, I mean" He gestured to the sprawling city below him "Humans seem to bend the world around them almost instinctively, we carve holes through mountains for roads, we burn down forests for space, we bridge over rivers for convenience, and we build our cities on every corner of every continent. We act as if we're the masters of our planet, owner of all, and beholden to no one… But storms like this?"_

_The man let out a chuckle, as he raised his hands, turning his palms up to catch the rain pouring down around him._

"_When a storm like this comes around we can't do anything about it! Oh sure, we build our barricades to keep from flooding and huddle in our houses to stay dry, but that's not really **doing **something, that's reactive not proactive." He scoffed "The point is that despite all our boasting and smugness, we can't stop a storm from happening. You can level a mountain range, but you can't blow up a storm, no sword, no gun, no tank, no plane, no weapon humanity has ever made in its long history of trying to kill itself can stop a storm from hitting a city, all that we can do is either get out of the way or hide inside... Which leaves us with you." The man laughed as a worryingly close bolt of lightning struck, rocking the building _

"_The butt end of a cosmic joke by the world itself! Your 'gift' that you take such pride in, the ability to see someone's future, lets you see the storms beyond the horizon, but that's it, that's all it does! You have no secret weapon, no plane, no tank, no gun, hell you don't even have a sword, and because you have no proactive choices, all you have left are reactive ones. You can either get out of the storm's way, or huddle inside to stay dry!"_

_The man cackled as he swayed dangerously near the ledge "You see that AllMight dies, you see what I do when I come, you see so many things -so many storms swirling just out of sight, and I can't wait! I can't wait for them to arrive, and too see what you'll do! Will you run or will you cower and hide, because if you think you can fight a storm without even a sword, well..." He chuckled "Then you must be dreaming, and if that's the case, here's some advice-"_

**_WAKE UP!_**

Nighteye jerked awake to a crash of thunder.

"Just a dream" he grunted to himself as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Taking a moment to collect himself, he blinked wearily at his desk as his memory came back to him.

'_That's right' _he mused grumpily to himself as he eyed the various papers stacked to organised piles about his desk. The Yakuza he had been monitoring had become more and more active recently, meaning more work and all-nighters on his end, but the Yakuza (for as annoying as they could be) wouldn't have been able to overwork him this bad even if they tried. No, the blame for any recent grey hairs could be placed solely on something much smaller, fluffier, and infinitely more frustrating at times.

The future sight hero scoffed as he read through Nezu's reply letter, assuring him that UA security was as tight as it could be, and that he would funnel any reports of a villain that matched the description Nighteye had given him, directly to his agency.

The Foresight Hero could only give a heavy sigh as a disturbing sense of dejavu settled over him, this was almost exactly what had happened between him and nezu when he first got his vision of AllMight's death.

The principle would smile and nod his head, giving some help here and there when he could spare it, and assure that if anything came up he was only a call away, that he trusted Nighteye.

… but he didn't believe him.

Now it wasn't _really_ Nezu's fault, it just so happened the principle worked on a slightly different branch of logic than most people, due to his quirk. High Spec let the little mouse-bear see the world through a filter of pure logic, every action had both a consequence as well as a reason for happening, and the world at large was like a vast array of interconnected strings of dominoes. Each domino that fell was itself an action, the consequence of the domino before it, and the reason for the one after it. Given a big enough picture, Nezu could follow the dominoes along and perfectly predict the way things would turn out in any given situation -not because he used some voodoo black-magic, but because to him it made logical sense. Thing X happened because thing Y happened all the way back here, and if he prevents thing Z from happening then situation L will never occur. But this black and white view of 'happens' or 'doesn't happen' comes with an annoying byproduct, if presented with something that didn't make logical sense, didn't fit into his string of dominoes, the principle tended to not take it very seriously.

Which is why Nighteye, who's quirk tended to not care about logic, found him so infuriating to work with at times.

He had gone to Nezu the day after his vision of the man in the lab coat, but as he paced about the principal's office, explaining in detail what he saw, what could happen, what _would _happen, Nezu had just sat there nodding along with a smile on his face, and a knowing, sympathetic, look in his eyes -the same look you would expect from a father listening to his son tell him he was going to be the first astronaut to land on the sun.

So Nezu would make some promises, buff up security, and maybe toss him a bone or two if something came up, but it wasn't commitment, no, it was appeasement, doing just enough so Nighteye couldn't complain and nothing more.

Nezu was just now starting to take his warning about AllMight seriously due to his dwindling time limit, two _years _after he had first given it.

Two years of time they could have been preparing, gone.

And it was happening again, but just like last time, there was very little he could do about it. Sure he could work on it by himself, but he lacked the resources, contacts, and diplomatic weight that Nezu had through UA, compared to that, what could a former sidekick of the fading top Hero bring to the table?

Which left him here, sifting through files of petty Yakuza activity while everything creeped closer, and there was damn near nothing he could do about it.

But that didn't mean he wouldn't try… he was too stubborn not to.

-Rain of Sins-

Ujiko was pacing, it was a bad habit of his whenever he got particularly lost in thought, add on his occasional muttering and you have a picture perfect start for a 'mad doctor' character. Well, at least that's what his colleagues would joke about way back at the start of his career, he had told them off for stereotyping, but looking back and considering where he was now, well...

Ujiko's train of thought was interrupted, when the very person he had been waiting for the past half hour to arrive, finally decided to bother turning the corner.

"Izuku!" he shouted, causing the boy to jump "You're late!"

"LATE!? Wha- n-no I'm not, I made sure to get here exactly when you told me to be here by"

"Bah!" Ujiko made a dismissive motion with his hand, waving away the point Izuku had made "Early is on time, on time is late, and _late _is _Unacceptable_!"

"Now I know you're scared" He said as he grabbed Izuku by the shoulders "But listen to me. You are ready for this, you can do this, believe in yourself _not_ because you have some special talent but because you've worked for it! Why, you've worked _almost _as much as me, and _that_ is a feat impressive beyond words, so hear me now. There is absolutely no way you'll mess this up" He gave a wide smile "You're gonna do great kid."

Izuku couldn't help but stand a little straighter

"Errr, well… You'll _most likely _do great" Ujiko let go of Izuku and moved his hands as if to weigh his options "I mean- do to the theory of probability, there's technically no such thing as an 'absolute'. So yes, you _caaaan_ do it, but there's also always a small chance that you'll totally mess everything up. So you should always remember to have a backup plan because no matter what you do, that chance -no matter how small- will always be there, and you'll never be able to get rid of it"

Ujiko nodded sagely to himself, proud of catching that teaching opportunity to impart some of his favorite wisdom upon his protege, completely missing how said protege had lost just about any bit of 'standing straighter' he had acquired.

"But really, you shouldn't worry- I've done speeches and presentation stuff in front of these guys before, and they're a fantastic audience"

"R-Really?"

"Yup" He said, popping the 'P' "It goes about the same way every time- I stand up and talk, they sit there nodding along, then, when I finish, they all clap and give various praises! It's as easy, as apple pie is American!"

'_Is it really that simple?' _a small smile worked onto Izuku's face as his head peaked up _'Of course it is, Dr Ujiko wouldn't give me something I couldn't do! I've just been overthinking everything! I can do this!'_

"Although…"

Ujiko brought up a hand to stroke his mustache "I _am _the one who writes their paychecks, and I _did _fire the last guy who kept trying to go against the outline I presented." He hummed in thought "So now that I think about it, it makes a lot more sense that they'd act so docile… but you don't have any of that do you? You're not their boss, you don't pay them, and even if they did say something what could you do? In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, they probably hate your guts"

"I mean- think about it. These are guys who've spent literally their whole lives trying to climb up the ladder, and then I go and pull you in from outta nowhere, completely undermining all their work."

By the time he finished, Izuku was as still as a stone statue, and about as pale as one too.

Ujiko on the other hand, gave a "Huh" and continued to stare out into space for a few seconds before blinking a few times and bringing his train of thought back into the real world.

"What was I talking about again?... Oh yes- IZUKU!"

"Y-Y-YES!?"

"My most important advice that I can give!"

He grasped his successor by his shoulders and stared directly into his eyes.

"Don't Fail!"

And with that he spun around, stuffed his hands in his pockets, marched down the hallway and around the corner.

…

Izuku blinked.

He blinked again.

Was…

Was that It?

"D-Don't fail" He repeated Ujiko's last bit of advice to himself.

"G-Great advice" He told himself, less to remember, and more to convince himself that it somehow classified as actual advice.

...

Oh who was he kidding, he was gonna die.

…

"Oh! And also!" Ujiko poked his head out from around the corner, pausing to ignore Izuku's yelp of surprise "Stop stuttering, you're just gonna wind up pissing people off and making a fool of yourself. If you're going to be a true man of science you need to present your art to the world with a clear, confident voice! So no more stuttering!"

Izuku sighed and slumped into the wall as Ujiko ducked out of sight- "Oh! And remember!" -only to immediately jump back to attention as the mad doctor appeared yet again.

"The best way to impress someone is to make your statement big, loud, and most importantly, memorable!"

And with that Ujiko nodded and walked away for the final time, a satisfied smile on his face. Truly, he had just done a good thing, a net positive for the world at large.

His steps slowed as a thought crossed his mind.

Was… was this how Heroes felt when _they _did good things? He closed his eyes, as a smile graced his face.

But this wasn't one of his normal smiles, no- it wasn't maniacal, it wasn't from laughing, or from joy, or even forced, no, it was a smile of contentedness.

If this was what doing good things felt like, then he could say that maybe, just maybe… he understood them just a little bit better.

And so he stood there, just letting the warm feeling of content wash over him.

"Was…" Yuyara, who had been standing in a nearby doorway, croaked "Was that the first time you've done a motivational speech?" She asked with a blank smile and just the _tiniest _twitch in her left eye.

"Why yes it was!" Ujiko pruned with pride "I had to improvise a few parts there, but I personally think it turned out really well towards the end there, don't you?"

Marching off before she could respond, The doctor completely missed the worried look on her face as she hurried after him.

He had full faith that Izuku could do this, and nothing could convince him otherwise.

-Rain of Sins-

Izuku couldn't do this.

He knew it when he woke up that morning, he knew it when we entered the largest lab Ujiko had in his underground science empire, he knew it when he walked up the incredibly long set of stairs, avoiding the elevator just to delay it a bit longer, and he knew it for sure standing in front of a group of people glaring at him with enough heat to melt steel.

'_Don't Fail' _Ujiko had said, but unfortunately, that didn't really help in the current situation.

The room was large, but not overly so, about the size of a small movie theater, Izuku himself stood on a neatly polished wooden stage, with several spotlights shining directly down upon him. In front of the quirkless boy were exactly twenty five rows of seats, each helpfully labeled with a number emblazoned on the wall next to it, each row was slightly elevated to the one that came before it, with a set of crimson rugged stairs cutting through the middle.

These seats however, despite being capable of holding a little over 200 people, sat completely empty, instead Izuku's audience sat at the very back. At the end of the room, elevated above the rest of the room by a ten foot wall, sat a long curved desk, made of a rich dark wood and highlighted with what appeared to be strips of gold, the entire thing probably cost more than the apartment building Izuku lived in.

But if the desk was intimidating, the people sitting at it were another matter entirely. In the very middle Ujiko sat, fingers linked in front of his face, with his goggles tilted at _just _the right angle so they reflected the light with an eerie white glow, masking any emotions he might have portrayed otherwise.

On either side of him sat five people, totalling ten in all, some wore neatly fitted lab coats personalized to give them an air of authority, others opted out of lab coats entirely, wearing luxurious suits and dresses, some wore armbands while others had insignias sewn directly into their fabric, but even without that it was quite obvious who they all were.

These were Ujiko's top lab heads, the ones who completed the vast majority of the doctor's work and research, and in return had been given vast amounts of wealth and authority in his science emperium.

Izuku gulped, although the control they wielded was limited to the labs and facilities they owned, their influence was practically everywhere, best demonstrated by the fact each and every one of them had a direct line of access to Ujiko at all times- and not just to his assistant, but the ability to make a call the doctor himself at anytime and for any reason.

Needless to say, they were the people Izuku would very much like to avoid pissing off... unfortunately if the way they glared at him was any indication, the majority of them already hated them- and he hadn't even done anything yet!

The reception wasn't all negative though, off to the side, sitting on a chair dragged in from a floor below and looking _hilariously _out of place next to the fancy suits of the top brass, sat Yuyara, who Ujiko had dragged along to give Izuku 'moral support'.

She gave him a weak smile and a shaky thumbs up.

Very inspiring!

What _wasn't _inspiring was the giant screen that loomed behind him and over his head. It was obviously supposed to be used for the presenter's visuals so the (very large) audience could actually see what they were talking about.

Now the reason this was uninspiring, was the fact that If he had known about said screen, he would have gladly prepared for it, instead he stood lamely beside the easel he had spent half an hour dragging up the stairwell, filled with painstakingly hand drawn graphs and charts, charts that -due to the distance between him and his audience- probably couldn't even be seen clearly.

It was obvious that this place was supposed to be used for very important announcements, but it was equally obvious that no matter how important it may be, Ujiko was Ujiko, and had proceeded to not register this fact at all but instead go 'Ooh, shiny' and hijack it for Izuku's presentation without a second thought.

Izuku gulped and sent a hesitant glance towards his 'audience' only to immediately break eye contact under the harsh glares they were sending his way.

'_Don't Fail, Don't Fail' _He repeated in his head, panicking wouldn't help him here. Ujiko was expecting him to do well, and having a panic attack on stage most likely didn't classify as 'doing well'.

'_Don't Fail, Don't Fail' _He clenched his fists and forced himself to take a deep breath to try and calm down.

'_Don't Fail, Don't Fail'_ He could do this!

'_Don't Fail, Don't Fail'_ Ok, maybe he couldn't, but that didn't change the fact that he _had _to.

'_DON'T FAIL, DON'T FAIL'_ So He might as well do his Best!

He stood up as straight as he could and locked eyes with the burning, judgmental glares.

"H-H-H**_E_**LLO EVERYONE!"

Only to flinch when his voice cracked horribly on the first word.

… The only reaction from the audience was Yuyara letting her head drop into her hands with a sob.

He wasn't wasn't exactly a public speaker ok?

Tuning his voice down so he wasn't yelling, and clamping down on his stutter with as much force as possible, he started again.

"Hello everyone, I'm here to give a-" _What was this? A speech? A presentation? _"T-T_A_Lk to you about a-a potential, experimental, procedure I addapte-err- developed to increase the efficiency of nomu production- I mean of the nomu produced from the nomu production!"

Coughing awkwardly, Izuku shifted to something that couldn't stutter on words- his trusty easel. Grabbing the first slide, a blank poster sized sheet with only his name lamely scrawled across the front, he moved it to the back of the easel, revealing the next slide in the set. This one was filled with just about as many charts and graphs as he could fit on it, with quite a few sticky notes sticking off it because he ran out of room and needed to add more.

"Th-This is project Neptune" He bit his tongue, berating himself for the stutter "It's an experimental procedure applied to the, um, the b-bodies before the main nomu procedure. It uses DNA splicing a-and a combination of serums that, if implemented correctly, should- a-at least in theory- increase any nomu's base ca-capability by at least 20% at the lowest, a-and up to 63% at the highest"

"This is possible because, uh" He quickly patted down the lab coat he was wearing before pulling out a pointer stick "b-because it increases things such as muscle fiber concentration, bone density, r-red blood cell count, a-and such" He pointed to the graph situated on the topmost left of the sheet "Y-You can clearly see here that quirks use these base, uh, th-these base values as a multiplier and not a linear add on-"

His audience leaned forward and squinted in an attempt to see what he was pointing to on the easel, while Ujiko made his first visible reaction since the presentation started by calmly tapping the side of his goggles.

What? Was that supposed to be some kind of signal!? A message!? What does a single dot mean in morse code!?

Pushing past the anxiety riddled questions swirling through his head, Izuku turned back to his easel, finding comfort in the swathes of numbers he could read off to sound like he knew how to hold a speech.

-Rain of Sins-

"So let me get this straight" This was not good "You want us to dump, who knows how much time and money into this 'experiment' of yours without any proof that it will even work?" This was really not good

"W-Well if you look at the numbers I-"

"Numbers are one thing, _results _are another"

Things had been going- well, not good, but not terrible for Izuku. He had managed to bumble his way through the rest of his presentation without making _too _much of a fool of himself, managing to mask any stuttering by using a deluge of numerical values instead of words. But just when things seemed to be looking up- and by that of course I mean he had ran out of slides, said "The End", and was about to run out the door- his, oh so wonderful, audience had started doing the one thing he had prayed they wouldn't do.

They started talking.

Talking and asking questions, questions that he couldn't just dump numbers on until they went away.

"I'm starting to genuinely wonder why you even called this meeting in the first place"

Oh and that was another thing, apparently they all thought _he _had Ujiko call this meeting! He would laugh at the irony, if he weren't too busy having a panic attack.

The man sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration as his fellows nodded along in agreement. "And really, even if it _does_ work, why even bother? If we want a stronger than usual nomu, we can just give it a strength quirk"

"B-But Q-Quirk rejection…"

"Quirk rejection is annoying, but strength quirks are a dime a dozen- the sheer volume of them that we have on record almost guarantees we'll be able to find a small one that won't destabilize everything"

"B-But w-wai-"

"I happen to agree with Dr Rome on this" a woman at the far end of the table said "Your idea is reckless at best and just plane dangerous at worst" She sneered "Honestly this whole thing is just-"

"BRILLIANT!"

'_Huh?'_

"ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!" Ujiko shouted with a laugh as he stood from his seat "Tell me my boy, will this treatment work as an improvement for _all _quirks or just physical ones?"

"W-Well" Izuku stuttered, caught off guard by the changing subject "Obviously there a-are a few quirks like invisibility that it wouldn't affect, but it should have a noticeable increase in just about e-everything else"

"Wonderful!" Ujiko clapped "This! This right here is why I made you my successor! Hold up some of those slides again, I'm interested in some of those calculations- actually, no wait, nevermind! I'll just come down there and look at them myself, that'll be much more efficient!"

What followed was a blur of laughing and shouting from Ujiko, and grumbling and complaints from the lab heads, who, due to Ujiko having spoken up, couldn't really say anything against his proposal anymore. With his adrenaline fading off, and his mental train in a twist, Izuku's memories of immediately afterwards were a bit fuzzy, but there was one specific part that stuck out to him.

"My boy, here's a word of advice" Ujiko laughed as he led Izuku out of the building "When trying to coin something to a group of people, you only ever really need to bother convincing the most important person in the room. And here's a secret to go with that advice" The mad doctor chuckled as he pat Izuku on the shoulder "You already had me on your side before you even got on that stage"

-Rain of Sins-

Yuyara hummed drowsily as she walked down the stairs to her lab's lower levels, her cup of coffee occasionally swaying a bit too far to either side for any onlooker's comfort.

It had been roughly a month since Izuku's big presentation, and subsequent reveal from Ujiko that it apparently had been his way of trying to break Green's confidence problem? She didn't really know to be honest. Ujiko had explained it to her in some grand speech afterwards, buuuuuut, what he said didn't really make all that much sense to her, considering ya know, Green turning _green_ on stage didn't seem like an indicator that he had gained any self confidence- but hey, she wasn't about to say anything, she liked being paid!

All that aside, the past month had been a lot less terrible than she had anticipated. Ujiko had been genuinely excited about Izuku's idea and had commandeered a section of the lab and gave it, alongside a handful of people, to Izuku for him to start testing. (And he did this without telling Yuyara beforehand, much to the young lab head's annoyance)

But it was fine, she was a big girl, she could deal with being annoyed. After all, she was an adult, and could deal with these things in a healthy, responsible way.

That is to say, she could spread the pain and annoy everyone else at her lab, because it was _her _lab, and she was their boss.

With a smirk, and a flash of her ID badge, the door to Izuku's section of the lab- looking exactly identical to every other door in the building- slid open with a hiss.

"Oh Greeeeeeeeen!~" She called out lazily as she stepped into the room. Green was going to hate her, and she knew he was going to hate her, because she hated people when they messed with her early in the morning- ugh, and now she had just reminded herself that yes, it was very early in the morning, and of course, now that she was thinking about it, she was suddenly much more tired than she was a few seconds ago.

Fuck psychology, it was her brain, it should work the way she wanted it to. She drank the caffeine chemical, give her awake-ness.

She hated the morning, fuck 'breakfast is the most important meal of the day', if you want to eat early, eat brunch- anything earlier than that is too early. But she had a job to do, and if she wanted to get paid (and eventually get her paycheck to go up a few zeros) she actually had to work. Hence why she was always one of the first at the lab in the morning, and hence why she was always in a bad mood until lunch.

What? Just because she was lazy didn't mean she didn't do her work, no, she did her job and she was damn good at it to- the reason Ujiko grumbled about her 'slacking around' but never actually threatened to fire her, was because of one thing, one very fucking specific thing.

Paperwork.

She did her job, produced as many results as possible, reported to Ujiko, and did all the important parts that running one of the boss' labs required you to do.

But paperwork?

Bullshit.

Literally all of that garbage was useless _Bullshit_, a bureaucratic tangled mess of fucking bullshit that all the top Lab Heads had the smaller labs fill out, because God knows _Ujiko _would never bother managing the day to day events of every fucking lab he had scattered around Japan. So of course he would just pawn off all the work to someone else, all he cared about was that his deadlines were hit- and lord knows how he got when people missed deadlines.

cough* Literally traveling in person to some tiny lab in the rats ass of nowhere because Hero activity put them behind schedule *cough*

The paperwork was bullshit, it was useless beyond useless, held no value, and was _fucking_ time consuming! She wasn't touching that with a 20 foot pole, no, she was letting it all pile up in actual, physical piles that gave Ujiko an aneurysm every time he saw them, and she was gonna keep doing that until he caved and let her hire someone to do it all for her.

Great now she was thinking about mornings, _and _paperwork, _and _all the bullshit she had to deal with, and now she was in a pissy mood.

"Green! Where are you?!" She shouted as she walked past yet another DNA sequencing machine, identical to the past 30 before it. "Anyone home!?"

Peeking her head through any doors she came across, it wasn't long until she came to the end of the lab branch, and the final door which- after a quick hiss of air- revealed that 'Anyone' was in fact not home.

"Hmmph" She huffed as she trudged into the final room "Green must have finally realised coffee isn't a direct substitute for sleep" She grumbled to herself as she fished around in her coat's pocket, eventually fishing out, and popping a mint into her mouth "It only took him a month of falling asleep at his desk to realise it- although I'll gladly take him falling asleep at his desk everyday over babbling about the damn U.A. entrance exam everyday, and thank God he stopped going on about that, future boss or not, I was going to throttle him if he brought up the fucking thing one more time..."

Her grumbling tempered off as her attention was distracted by the very obvious thing glowing in the middle of the room.

After a few seconds of staring, and with a bit of a laugh, she realised that the large metal cylinder sitting menacingly in the middle of the room with a spotlight directly over it was a containment unit.

'_Geeze Green, I know your proud of that prototype serum you developed, and yea you're still getting used to the whole scientist bit, but you don't have to make it look like something out of a crappy 80's Mad Doctor movie'_

Walking to the obnoxiously obvious thing, she gave it a once over before she ever so carefully jabbed her thumb into the big button on the side.

With all the flare and over the top dramatics you would expect from something straight out of a crappy Hollywood movie, the cylinder shook, shifted, and slid open with a gout of white fog to reveal-

"It's empty?"

Yuyara scratched her head as she stared at the very empty spot where a vial of some kind was clearly supposed to be sitting.

It wasn't like there wasn't something to put there, Izuku had been _ecstatic _when they finally managed to get a working prototype a few days ago and had babbled to her about it over their lunch break. Could he have moved it? If so why? It wasn't like there was anything useful he could do with i-

"_Well… think about it, your problem is that you have two different goals, but only enough time to prepare for one, sooooo…" _

_"Do something that will do both at the same time?" _

_"Bingo!"_

Her breath caught as her conversation with Izuku all that time ago came back with full force.

'_H-He made the thing to work with nomu immediately before the transformation process! A-And nomu before the process…'_

Normal human bodies, without any artificially injected quirks, in other words.

"They're just like him…"

Yuyara stumbled back, gripping the edge of a nearby table for support, her brain flying at a hundred miles a minute trying to figure out what she _should_ do, what she _could _do, and what the hell she was _going_ to do.

She knew, from Izuku's previous babbling, that the U.A. exam was this month on the 14th at 7:00 am sharp, and it was currently- she frantically pulled out her phone-Monday the 14th, 6:48 am.

…

"Fuck"

-End Chapter-

-Arc: A Slippery Slope: End-

** Fuck indeed, Yuyara, fuck indeed. **

**Now.**

** *Sips Hot Chocolate***

**IZUKU WILL GET A QUIRK, DON'T HURT ME! *Cowers in corner***

**Look, I know everyone was/is expecting him to get a quirk -and he will, the story literally wouldn't make sense if he didn't- but just letting him give himself any quirk he could ever want, right at the beginning of the story, would instantly drop him into OP waters, and OP characters can't be challenged or pushed like weak ones, and without failing and struggle there's no character development, and if there's no character development for the _main character _then I'm writing my story wrong!**

**So yes, he will get his fancy quirks, but only when he is ready.**

***Ahem***

**I'm also working on another pilot chapter.**

**(Don't get mad, I was bored on the road trip out to my grandma's (not the dead one) and I didn't have my laptop (and with it this story) with me at the time)**

**Now my pilot chapters are usually some of my best singular works - I have a few chapters already planned out via bullet points and rough drafts that will out-do this fics opening by magnitudes later on, but that's do to the plot threads I'm weaving finally coming together, not because I'm _constantly _pushing myself to create that perfect hook to get the reader to keep scrolling and give the fic a shot. The first chapter doesn't have the benefit of previous chapters to build up a plot (which is literally what the last two arks have been about, and why they don't exactly have that same zap the first chapter had, I'm stacking up my small hill of dynamite instead of setting it off as it comes. **

***cough* Building up to the fucking entrance exam for 35k words now *cough***

**Now that being said, this new thing isn't going to be a consistently updated story (If I continue it at all), I already have an annoying enough time keeping my writing schedule straight for one fic, there's no way I could do two without someone paying me enough for my inherent greed to overtake my disorganisation, and laziness that I use to entertain myself after work and junk.**

***Sips Hot Chocolate***

**On a completely unrelated note, just a few more favorites, and we'll hit the '500 favorites' goal that's been sitting on my goal wall since we hit 200 (Man that feels like forever ago), and we're drifting ever closer to that illusive 1K follows, if we hit that then I guess I've been doing somethin' right.**

**Oh! Also-Also, while we're talking about stories. I updated my profile, Story ideas come to me overtime just as I daydream/slack off at work and in class, but while I write down and keep a bunch of good ones, very few of 'em have long standing potential. IE: I could get two or three really good arcs but after that the plot would kinda just float off and not really make sense.**

**I went ahead and tossed a bunch of those onto the bottom of my profile page for no other reason that I was just really bored and didn't have my laptop with me to write. If you wanna pick one of 'em up and write one then go ahead, they ain't half bad ideas, and if your bad at naming or have a hard time coming up with stuff (I speak from experience) I went ahead and put the names I used for them when I was planning them out on paper to see if they would work. So y'all could use em if you want to.**

** If you do wanna write one all I ask is that you PM me, not even for permission or anything but just 'cuz I get bored and like to read, and I'd totally read whatever people came up with from those.**

**All that said, it's just about one in the morning and I have to be up early tomorrow, so I'ma end it here.**

**Stay safe guys!**

**-Next chapter: Nov 1-2nd~ish-**

**(And let's try to actually hit the goal this time, ok future me?)**


End file.
